Thanks for the context. I should note that I did not in any way intend to disparage Beckstead’s personal character or motivations, which I definitely assume to be both admirable and altruistic.
As stated in my comment, I found the quote relevant for the argument from Torres that Haydn discussed in this post. I also just generally think the argument itself is worth discussing, including by considering how it might be interpreted by readers who do not have the context provided by the author’s personal actions.
Happy to have a go; the “in/out of context” is a large part of the problem here. (Note that I don’t think I agree with Beckstead’s argument for reasons given towards the end).
(1) The thesis (198 pages of it!) is about shaping the far future, and operates on staggering timescales. Some of it like this quote is written in the first person, which has the effect of putting it in the present-day context, but these are at their heart philosophical arguments abstracted from time and space. This is a thing philosophers do.
If I were to apply the argument to the 12th century world, I might claim that saving a person in what is now modern day Turkey would have greater ripple effects than saving a person in war-ravaged Britain. The former was lightyears further ahead in science and technology, chock full of incredible muslim scholar-engineers like Al Jazari (seriously; read about this guy). I might be wrong of course; the future is unpredictable and these ripples might be wiped out in the next century by a Mongol Horde (as for the most part did happen); but wrong on different grounds.
And earlier in the thesis Beckstead provides a whole heap of caveats (in addition to ‘all other things being equal’, including that his argument explicitly does not address issues “such as whose responsibility that is, how much the current generation should be required to sacrifice for the sake of future generations, how shaping the far future stacks up against special obligations or issues of justice”; these are all “good questions” but out of scope.)
If Beckstead further developed the ‘it is better to save lives in rich countries’ argument in the thesis, explicitly embedding it within the modern context and making practical recommendations that would exacerbate the legacy of harm of postcolonial inequality, then Torres might have a point. He does not. It’s a paragraph on one page of a 198 page PhD thesis. Reading the paragraph in the context of the overall thesis gives a very different impression than the deliberately leading context that Torres places the paragraph in.
(2) Now consider the further claims that Torres has repeatedly made—that this paragraph taints the entire field in white supremacy; and that any person or organisation who praised the thesis is endorsing white supremacy. This is an even more extreme version of the same set of moves. I have found nothing—nothing -anywhere in the EA or longtermist literature building on and progressing this argument.
(3) The same can be seen, but in a more extreme fashion, for the Mogensen paper. Again, an abstract philosophical argument. Here Mogensen (in a very simplified version) observes that over three dimensions—the world—total utilitarianism says you should spread your resources over all people in that space. But if you introduce a 4th dimension—time, then the same axiology says you should spread your resources over space and time, and the majority of that obligation lies in the future. It’s an abstract philosophical argument. Torres reads in white supremacy, and invites the reader to read in white supremacy.
(4) The problem here is that no body of scholarship can realistically withstand this level of hostile scrutiny and leading analysis. And no field can realistically withstand the level of hostile analysis where one paragraph in a PhD thesis taken out of context is used to damn an entire field. I don’t think I personally agree with the argument on its own terms—it’s hard to prove definitively but I would have a concern that inequality has often been argued to be a driver of systemic instability, and that if so, any intervention that increases inequality might contribute to negative ‘ripple effects’ regardless of what countries were rich and poor at a given time. And I think the paragraph itself could reasonably be characterised as ‘thoughtless’, given the author is a white western person writing in C21, even if the argument is not explicitly in this context.
However the extreme criticism presented in Torres’s piece stands in stark contrast to the much more serious racism that goes unchallenged in so much of scholarship and modern life. Any good-faith actor will in the first instance pursue these, rather than reading the worst ills possible into a paragraph of a PhD thesis. I’ve run out of time, but will illustrate this shortly with a prominent example of what I consider to be much more significant racism from Torres’s own work.
“Consider the claim that there will be 2.76 billion Muslims by 2050. Now, 1% of this number equals 27.6 million people, roughly 26.2 million more than the number of military personnel on active duty in the US today. It follows that if even 1% of this figure were to hold “active apocalyptic” views, humanity could be in for a catastrophe like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.”
Firstly, this is nonsense. The proposition that 1% of Muslims would hold “active apocalyptic” views and be prepared to act on it is pure nonsense. And “if even 1%” suggests this is the author lowballing.
Secondly, this is fear-mongering against one of the most feared and discriminated-against communities in the West, being written for a Western audience.
Thirdly, it utilises another standard racism trope, population replacement—look at the growing number of scary ‘other’. They threaten to over-run the US’s good ’ol apple pie armed forces.
This was not a paragraph in a thesis. It was a public article, intended to reach as wide an audience as possible. It used to be prominently displayed on his now-defunct website. The article above was written several years more recently than Beckstead’s thesis.
I will say, to Torres’s credit, that his views on Islam have become more nuanced over time, and that I have found his recent articles on Islam less problematic. This is to be praised. And he has moved on from attacking Muslims to ‘critiquing’ right-wing Americans, the Atheist community, and the EA community. This is at least punching sidewards, rather than down.
But he has not subject his own body of work, or other more harmful materials, to anything like the level of critique that he has subjected Beckstead, Mogensen etc al. I consider this deeply problematic in terms of scholarly responsibility.
Thanks for the context. I should note that I did not in any way intend to disparage Beckstead’s personal character or motivations, which I definitely assume to be both admirable and altruistic.
As stated in my comment, I found the quote relevant for the argument from Torres that Haydn discussed in this post. I also just generally think the argument itself is worth discussing, including by considering how it might be interpreted by readers who do not have the context provided by the author’s personal actions.
Happy to have a go; the “in/out of context” is a large part of the problem here. (Note that I don’t think I agree with Beckstead’s argument for reasons given towards the end).
(1) The thesis (198 pages of it!) is about shaping the far future, and operates on staggering timescales. Some of it like this quote is written in the first person, which has the effect of putting it in the present-day context, but these are at their heart philosophical arguments abstracted from time and space. This is a thing philosophers do.
If I were to apply the argument to the 12th century world, I might claim that saving a person in what is now modern day Turkey would have greater ripple effects than saving a person in war-ravaged Britain. The former was lightyears further ahead in science and technology, chock full of incredible muslim scholar-engineers like Al Jazari (seriously; read about this guy). I might be wrong of course; the future is unpredictable and these ripples might be wiped out in the next century by a Mongol Horde (as for the most part did happen); but wrong on different grounds.
And earlier in the thesis Beckstead provides a whole heap of caveats (in addition to ‘all other things being equal’, including that his argument explicitly does not address issues “such as whose responsibility that is, how much the current generation should be required to sacrifice for the sake of future generations, how shaping the far future stacks up against special obligations or issues of justice”; these are all “good questions” but out of scope.)
If Beckstead further developed the ‘it is better to save lives in rich countries’ argument in the thesis, explicitly embedding it within the modern context and making practical recommendations that would exacerbate the legacy of harm of postcolonial inequality, then Torres might have a point. He does not. It’s a paragraph on one page of a 198 page PhD thesis. Reading the paragraph in the context of the overall thesis gives a very different impression than the deliberately leading context that Torres places the paragraph in.
(2) Now consider the further claims that Torres has repeatedly made—that this paragraph taints the entire field in white supremacy; and that any person or organisation who praised the thesis is endorsing white supremacy. This is an even more extreme version of the same set of moves. I have found nothing—nothing -anywhere in the EA or longtermist literature building on and progressing this argument.
(3) The same can be seen, but in a more extreme fashion, for the Mogensen paper. Again, an abstract philosophical argument. Here Mogensen (in a very simplified version) observes that over three dimensions—the world—total utilitarianism says you should spread your resources over all people in that space. But if you introduce a 4th dimension—time, then the same axiology says you should spread your resources over space and time, and the majority of that obligation lies in the future. It’s an abstract philosophical argument. Torres reads in white supremacy, and invites the reader to read in white supremacy.
(4) The problem here is that no body of scholarship can realistically withstand this level of hostile scrutiny and leading analysis. And no field can realistically withstand the level of hostile analysis where one paragraph in a PhD thesis taken out of context is used to damn an entire field. I don’t think I personally agree with the argument on its own terms—it’s hard to prove definitively but I would have a concern that inequality has often been argued to be a driver of systemic instability, and that if so, any intervention that increases inequality might contribute to negative ‘ripple effects’ regardless of what countries were rich and poor at a given time. And I think the paragraph itself could reasonably be characterised as ‘thoughtless’, given the author is a white western person writing in C21, even if the argument is not explicitly in this context.
However the extreme criticism presented in Torres’s piece stands in stark contrast to the much more serious racism that goes unchallenged in so much of scholarship and modern life. Any good-faith actor will in the first instance pursue these, rather than reading the worst ills possible into a paragraph of a PhD thesis. I’ve run out of time, but will illustrate this shortly with a prominent example of what I consider to be much more significant racism from Torres’s own work.
Here is an article by Phil Torres arguing that the rise of Islam represents a very significant and growing existential risk.
https://hplusmagazine.com/2015/11/17/to-survive-we-must-go-extinct-apocalyptic-terrorism-and-transhumanism/
I will quote a key paragraph:
“Consider the claim that there will be 2.76 billion Muslims by 2050. Now, 1% of this number equals 27.6 million people, roughly 26.2 million more than the number of military personnel on active duty in the US today. It follows that if even 1% of this figure were to hold “active apocalyptic” views, humanity could be in for a catastrophe like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.”
Firstly, this is nonsense. The proposition that 1% of Muslims would hold “active apocalyptic” views and be prepared to act on it is pure nonsense. And “if even 1%” suggests this is the author lowballing.
Secondly, this is fear-mongering against one of the most feared and discriminated-against communities in the West, being written for a Western audience.
Thirdly, it utilises another standard racism trope, population replacement—look at the growing number of scary ‘other’. They threaten to over-run the US’s good ’ol apple pie armed forces.
This was not a paragraph in a thesis. It was a public article, intended to reach as wide an audience as possible. It used to be prominently displayed on his now-defunct website. The article above was written several years more recently than Beckstead’s thesis.
I will say, to Torres’s credit, that his views on Islam have become more nuanced over time, and that I have found his recent articles on Islam less problematic. This is to be praised. And he has moved on from attacking Muslims to ‘critiquing’ right-wing Americans, the Atheist community, and the EA community. This is at least punching sidewards, rather than down.
But he has not subject his own body of work, or other more harmful materials, to anything like the level of critique that he has subjected Beckstead, Mogensen etc al. I consider this deeply problematic in terms of scholarly responsibility.
Understood!