Agrippa

Karma: 873

Agrippa 2 Sep 2022 18:56 UTC
102 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Open EA Global
I had a pretty painful experience where I was in a pretty promising position in my career, already pretty involved in EA, and seeking direct work opportunities as a software developer and entrepreneur. I was rejected from EAG twice in a row while my partner, a newbie who just wanted to attend for fun (which I support!!!) was admitted both times. I definitely felt resentful and jealous in ways that I would say I coped with successfully but wow did it feel like the whole thing was lame and unnecessary.

I felt rejected from EA at large and yeah I do think my life plans have adjusted in response. I know there were many such cases! In the height of my involvement I was a very devoted EA, really believed in giving as much as I could bear (time etc included).

This level of devotion juxtaposed with being turned away from even hanging out with people, it’s quite a shock. I think the high devotion version of my life would be quite fulfilling and beautiful, and I got into EA seeking a community for that, but never found it. EAG admissions is a pretty central example of this mismatch to me.

Agrippa 24 Feb 2022 5:10 UTC
73 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Agrippa’s Shortform
Why do I keep meeting so many damned capabilities researchers and AI salespeople?
I thought that we agreed capabilities research was really bad. I thought we agreed that increasing the amount of economic activity in capabiliities was really bad. To me it seems like the single worst thing that I could even do!

This really seems like a pretty consensus view among EA orthodoxy. So why do I keep meeting so many people who, as far as I can tell, are doing the single worst thing that it’s even in their power to do? If there is any legal thing that could get you kicked out of EA spaces, that isn’t sexual misconduct, wouldn’t it be this?
I’m not even talking about people who maintain that safety/alignment research requires advancing capabilities or might do so. I’m just talking about people who do regular OpenAI or OpenAI competitor shit.
If you’re supposed to be high status in EA for doing good, aren’t you supposed to be low status if you do the exact opposite? It honestly makes me feel like I’m going insane. Do EA community norms really demand that I’m supposed to act like something is normal and okay even though we all seem to believe that it really isn’t okay at all?
And yes I think there is a strong argument for ostracization. It seems like you would ostracize somebody for being a nuclear arms industry lobbyist. This seems worse. It’s not behaviorally clear that these people care about anything except mild fun and status incentives, so IDK why in the community we would at all align fun and status with doing the most evil thing you can do.
Of course it does seem like 80k is somewhat to blame here since they continue to promote regular-ass jobs at OpenAI in the jobs board as far as I know. Not very clear to me why they do this.
What links here?
- Speak the truth, even if your voice trembles by RobertM (14 Jan 2023 6:10 UTC; 92 points)
- agrippa's comment on What an actually pessimistic containment strategy looks like by lc (LessWrong; 5 Apr 2022 6:39 UTC; 36 points)

Agrippa 13 Sep 2023 21:51 UTC
57 points
23 ∶ 10
in reply to: Catherine Low’s comment on: Sharing Information About Nonlinear
Hmm. I think if I had been in an abusive situation such as the ones OP describes, and I (privately) went to the Community Health team about it, and the only outcomes were what you just listed, I would have considered it a waste of my time and emotional energy.

Edit: waste of my time relative to “going public”, that is.

Agrippa 11 Sep 2023 17:42 UTC
39 points
12 ∶ 0
in reply to: Catherine Low’s comment on: Sharing Information About Nonlinear
We were familiar with many (but not all) of the concerns raised in Ben’s post based on our own investigation.
What happened as a result of this, before Ben posted?

Agrippa 8 Jun 2022 21:10 UTC
34 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Power dynamics between people in EA
I would really like to participate in the version of EA where these power imbalances are not so severe. I think we could achieve this in various ways.
I think that insofar that the EA social scene is downstream of the EA institutions then these power imbalances will be a lot more totalizing. In contrast the EA Hotel felt like a truly safe environment.

Reducing EA job search waste

Agrippa17 Apr 2019 0:09 UTC

30 points

6 comments3 min readEA link

Agrippa 10 Nov 2022 6:33 UTC
27 points
3 ∶ 1
in reply to: Charles He’s comment on: FTX will likely go bankrupt. What we know and some forecasts on what will happen next
Would you be open to stating some probabilities on this topic—for example, your probability that Sam gets convicted of fraud, is conclusively found out to have committed fraud, etcetera?

I ask because I’d potentially be interested in making some financial bets with you!

Agrippa 10 Nov 2022 6:27 UTC
24 points
12 ∶ 6
in reply to: richard_ngo’s comment on: FTX will likely go bankrupt. What we know and some forecasts on what will happen next
I really take issue with #2 here. Bank run exacerbation saved my friend’s life savings. Expectations of collapse can save your life if, you know, there’s a collapse.
It really seems insanely cruel to say we shouldn’t inform people because it might be bad for FTX (namely in the event of insolvency). Where are our priorities? I’m very glad that my friends did not observe your #2 preference here.
Of course the best way to help FTX against a bank run would have been to deposit your own funds at the first sign of distress. As of writing I think it’s still not too late!

Agrippa 27 Dec 2018 19:29 UTC
24 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: EA Hotel Fundraiser 1: the story
I am a current short term visitor. Re: 1)
A) It’s much easier to filter for “genuine” applicants in this case vs. direct grants. The number of people who would like to have free money is very large, and many of them aren’t EAs. The number of people who would like to live in a hotel in Blackpool with a bunch of EAs is much smaller, and people in this set are much more likely to be genuine EAs.
B) I am interested in living at the hotel because having a place to work around other people is important (even necessary) for me to be productive, and it helps A LOT if we share values and interests. A grant wouldn’t do anything for me. I’m sure my position is common.
Re: 2) I had a lot of fun explaining the hotel to customs.
What links here?
- Ofer's comment on The Case for the EA Hotel by Halffull (1 Apr 2019 5:09 UTC; 16 points)
- Greg_Colbourn's comment on The Case for the EA Hotel by Halffull (8 Apr 2019 22:35 UTC; 2 points)

Agrippa 12 Nov 2022 9:27 UTC
22 points
8 ∶ 0
on: FTX will likely go bankrupt. What we know and some forecasts on what will happen next
I have to say I didn’t expect “all remaining assets across ftx empire ‘hacked’ and apps updated to have malware” as an outcome.

Agrippa 12 Nov 2022 9:54 UTC
21 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Lukio’s comment on: We must be very clear: fraud in the service of effective altruism is unacceptable
As somebody in the industry I have to say Alameda/FTX pushing MAPS was surreal and cannot be explained as good faith investing by a competent team.

Agrippa 11 Nov 2022 10:49 UTC
19 points
7 ∶ 0
in reply to: Agrippa’s comment on: FTX will likely go bankrupt. What we know and some forecasts on what will happen next
Seriously, imagine dedicating your life to EA and then finding out you lost your life savings because one group of EAs defrauded you and the other top EAs decided you shouldn’t be alerted about it for as long as possible specifically because it might lead to you reaching safety. Of course none of the in-the-know people decided to put up their own money to defend against bank run, just decided it would be best if you kept doing so.
In that situation I have to say I would just go and never look back.

Agrippa 8 Jun 2022 17:17 UTC
17 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The Strange Shortage of Moral Optimizers
One major concern I have with the actually-existing wholesale criticisms of EA is that they tend to reinforce a kind of moral complacency.
I agree this is common and it was what I most commonly confronted in college at Cornell. Oh, I should actually just be focused on living sustainably, not being racist, and participating in democracy, and this will be an optimally ethical life? Convenient if true!
I have several friends who are members of Direct Action Everywhere. I think DXE, as I’m exposed to it, does present a sort of alt-EA that you are asking about. I think that many DXE members could non hypocritically comment that EA is complacent / EAs are generally more complacent people than themselves.
While DXE is not focused on the general good (per se), anecdotally it seems like you can persuade DXE folks of extreme conclusions about the importance of AI safety, at least if they are also autistic.

Agrippa 25 Feb 2022 17:25 UTC
17 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What psychological traits predict interest in effective altruism?
the findings that education and income both anticorrelate with expansive altruism were the most surprising to me.
what surprised you the most?
lastly I am somewhat surprised to see no mention of autism.

Agrippa 25 Feb 2022 0:30 UTC
16 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Agrippa’s comment on: Agrippa’s Shortform
You know in some sense I see EA as a support group for crazies. Normie reality involves accepting a lot of things as OK that are not OK. If you care a lot in any visceral sense about x risk, or animal welfare, then you are in for a lot of psychic difficulty coping with the world around you. Hell, even just caring about the shit that isn’t remotely weird, like effective poverty interventions, is enough to cause psychic damage trying to cope with the way that your entire environment claims to care about helping people and behaviorally just doesn’t.
So when I see similar patterns and norms applied to capabilities research, that outside of EA just get applied to everything (“oh you work in gain of function? that sounds neat”), it gives me the jeebs.
This doesn’t invalidate the kind of math @richard_ngo is doing ala “well if we get 1 safety researcher for each 5 capabilities researchers we tolerate/enable, that seems worth it”. But I would like less jeebs.
What links here?
- Agrippa's comment on Agrippa’s Quick takes by Agrippa (25 Feb 2022 0:32 UTC; 2 points)

[Question] Is this quote from SBF aligned with EA?

Agrippa16 Mar 2023 3:37 UTC

15 points

2 comments1 min readEA link

Agrippa 16 Mar 2023 1:23 UTC
14 points
6 ∶ 4
in reply to: Habryka’s comment on: Shutting Down the Lightcone Offices
- I think Doing Good Better was already substantially misleading about the methodology that the EA community has actually historically used to find top interventions. Indeed it was very “randomista” flavored in a way that I think really set up a lot of people to be disappointed when they encountered EA and then realized that actual cause prioritization is nowhere close to this formalized and clear-cut.
I feel like I joined EA for this “randomista” flavored version of the movement. I don’t really feel like the version of EA I thought I was joining exists even though, as you describe here, it gets a lot of lip service (because it’s uncontroversially good and inspiring!!!!). I found it validating for you to point this out.

If it does exist, it hasn’t recruited me despite my pretty concentrated efforts over several years. And I’m not sure why it wouldn’t.

I don’t have a problem with longtermist principles. As far as I’m concerned maybe the best way to promote longterm good really is to take huge risks at the expense of community health / downside risks / integreity ala SBF (among others). But I don’t want to spend my life participating in some scheme to ruthlessly attain power and convert it into good, and I sure as hell don’t want to spend my life participating in that as a pawn. I liked the randomista + earn to give version of the movement because I could just do things that were definitely good to do in the company of others doing the same. I feel like that movement has been starved out by this other thing wearing it as a mask.

Agrippa 9 Jun 2022 14:55 UTC
14 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Charles He’s comment on: The Strange Shortage of Moral Optimizers
Another way of looking at this: if I sincerely believe in my comments, this direct communication is immensely useful, even or especially if I’m wrong.
I do not think this, for lack of actual content. What would it mean for me to change my view on any topic or argument you have advanced? for you to change yours? I would engage in less “leftist micro activism”? I would decide DXE is probably net harmful instead of net positive? I would start believing CEA has been competently executing community building, against evidence? It cashes out to nothing except vague cultural / ideological association.

--
I agree that the concerns around “dilution” are evidence of the phenomenon you are discussing.
- It remains unclear how impactful you believe this phenomenon has been in this case, which I think is important to convey.
- Obviously, if somebody thought X was good, and that EA growth has been slowed because CEA hates X, this would not in itself form an argument for anything except the existence of conflict between CEA and likers of X.
--
TLDR:
Finally, and very directly, actual incidents of real activism are extremely obvious here, and you must admit involve similar patterns of accusations of centralization, censorship, and dismissal from an out of touch, self interested central authority on causes no one cares about.
Yes, this seems to follow the format of your entire thesis
1. Agrippa is engaging in, or promoting X (X is not particularly specificied in the comments of Charles, so I have no idea whether or not Charles could actually accurately describe the difference between my views and the average forum poster)
2. X or some subset of X is often involved in the toxic and incompetent culture of toxic and incompetent leftist activism
3. Toxic and incompetent leftist activism is bad (directly, and because CEA has intentionally funded less things for fear of it) so Agrippa should not engage in or promote X
At the object level, X seems to be “giving DXE as an example of people who include credible moral optimizers that don’t align with EA”. If X includes other posts by me, perhaps it includes “claiming that CEA has not done a good job at community building or disbursing funds” (which does not rest on any leftist principles or heuristics and does not even seem controversial among experienced EAs), and “whining that EA has ended up collaborating with, instead of opposing, the AI capabilities work” (which also does not rest on anything I would consider even vaguely leftist coded).

Agrippa 16 Mar 2023 2:22 UTC
13 points
4 ∶ 1
on: Shutting Down the Lightcone Offices
17. I get a lot of messages these days about people wanting me to moderate or censor various forms of discussion on LessWrong that I think seem pretty innocuous to me, and the generators of this usually seem to be reputation related. E.g. recently I’ve had multiple pretty influential people ping me to delete or threaten moderation action against the authors of posts and comments talking about: How OpenAI doesn’t seem to take AI Alignment very seriously, why gene drives against Malaria seem like a good idea, why working on intelligence enhancement is a good idea. In all of these cases the person asking me to moderate did not leave any comment of their own trying to argue for their position, before asking me to censor the content. I find this pretty stressful, and also like, most of the relevant ideas feel like stuff that people would have just felt comfortable discussing openly on LW 7 years ago or so (not like, everyone, but there wouldn’t have been so much of a chilling effect so that nobody brings up these topics).

First of all, yikes.
Second of all, I think I could always sense that things were like this (broadly speaking), but simultaneously worried I was just paranoid and deranged. I think that this dynamic has been quite bad for my mental health.

Agrippa 2 Sep 2022 20:52 UTC
13 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Eli_Nathan’s comment on: Open EA Global
We simply have a specific bar for admissions and everyone above that bar gets admitted

A) Does this represent a change from previous years? Previous comms have gestured at a desire to get a certain mixture of credentials, including beginners. This is also consistent with private comms and my personal experience.

B) Its pretty surprising that Austin, a current founder of a startup that received 1M in EA related funding from FTX regrants, would be below that bar!

Maybe you are saying that there is a bar above which you will get in, but below which you may or may not get in.

I think lack of clarity and mixed signals around this stuff might contribute unnecessarily to hurt feelings.

Agrippa

Re­duc­ing EA job search waste

[Question] Is this quote from SBF al­igned with EA?

Reducing EA job search waste

[Question] Is this quote from SBF aligned with EA?