anonymousEA

Karma: −114

anonymousEA 1 Jan 2022 10:51 UTC
9 points
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in reply to: Aaron Gertler 🔸’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
Honestly, fair enough.

anonymousEA 31 Dec 2021 12:50 UTC
−60 points
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in reply to: CarlaZoeC’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
You spoke to 20+ reviewers, half of which were sought out to disagree with you, and not a single one could provide a case for differential technology?
Personally I read this as a straightforward accusation of dishonesty—something I would expect moderators to object to if the comment was critical (rather than supportive) of EA orthodoxy.
This is remarkably similar to a critique we got from Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh
I also found it suspicious that Rubi felt the need to comment using an anonymous throwaway account despite speaking in favor of established power structures.
To clarify, that’s not to say Rubi is necessarily Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh. I have no idea and I don’t know Seán.
However, this situation is very strange. Almost everyone on the EAforum uses their real name or a very thin pseudonym.
I am anonymous because vocally disagreeing with the status quo would probably destroy any prospects of getting hired or funded by EA orgs (see my heavily downvoted comment about my experiences somewhere at the bottom of this thread).
This clearly doesn’t apply to Rubi, so what’s up?

anonymousEA 31 Dec 2021 3:51 UTC
18 points
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in reply to: ESRogs’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
It’s also not the claim being made:
...minority opinion which happens to reinforce existing power relations and is mainly advocated by billionaires and those funded by [them]...

anonymousEA 30 Dec 2021 11:14 UTC
−9 points
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in reply to: Aaron Gertler 🔸’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
But it is basic background knowledge, and that point needs to be made clear to those less familiar with the topic! This isn’t an issue of understanding and disagreeing, as demonstrated by his non-sequitur about COVID if nothing else.
If, for instance, someone who has written about AI more than once argues that the Chinese government funding AI research for solely humanitarian reasons, you have two choices: they are being honest but ignorant (which is unlikely, embarrassing for them and worrying for any community that treats them as an authority) or they are being dishonest (which is bad for everyone). There is no “charitable” position here.
I understand and agree with the discourse norms here, but if someone is demonstrably, repeatedly, unequivocally acting in bad faith then others must be able to call that out.

anonymousEA 30 Dec 2021 11:03 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: keller_scholl’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
It is morally tenable under some moral codes but not others. That’s the point.

anonymousEA 30 Dec 2021 2:20 UTC
5 points
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in reply to: AdamGleave’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
“Direct” vs “indirect” x-risk is a crude categorization, as most risks will cause hazards via a variety of pathways.
I think you switched the two by accident
Otherwise an excellent comment even if I disagree with most of it, have an updoot

anonymousEA 30 Dec 2021 2:12 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: keller_scholl’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
I think this conflates the criticism of the idea of unitary and unstoppable technological progress with opposition to any and all technological progress.

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 21:00 UTC
5 points
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in reply to: weeatquince’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
We could also on occasion say “yes we get this wrong and we still have much to learn” and not treat every critique as an attack.
Strong upvote for this if nothing else.
(the rest is also brilliant though, thank you so much for speaking up!)

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 20:35 UTC
−14 points
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in reply to: Will Bradshaw’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
The argument is too vague to counter: how do you disprove claims about unspecified problems with unspecified tools in unspecified contexts?
There is no snark in this comment, I am simply stating my views as clearly and unambiguously as possible.
I’d like to add that as someone whose social circle includes both EAs and non-EAS, I have never witnessed reactions as defensive and fragile as those made by some EAs in response to criticism of orthodox EA views. This kind of behaviour simply isn’t normal.

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 19:06 UTC
−2 points
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in reply to: John G. Halstead’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
Which alternatives to EV have what problems for what uses in what contexts?
Why do those problems make them worse than EV, a tool that requires the use of numerical probabilities for poorly-defined events often with no precedent or useful data?
What makes all alternatives to EV less preferable to the way in which EV is usually used in existential risk scholarship today, where subjectively-generated probabilities are asserted by “thought leaders” with no methodology and no justification, about events that are not rigorously defined nor separable, which are then fed into idealized economic models, policy documents, and press packs?
What links here?
- Aaron Gertler 🔸's comment on Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics by CarlaZoeC (2 Jan 2022 21:56 UTC; 31 points)

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 15:05 UTC
−1 points
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in reply to: John G. Halstead’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
I really don’t see the link between reducing air travel and the fact that COVID killed millions of people and necessitated lockdown measures.
I’m going to disengage now. Repeatedly mischaracterizing opposing views and deploying non-sequiturs for rhetorical reasons do not indicate to me that this will be a productive conversation.

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 12:15 UTC
−4 points
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in reply to: Guy Raveh’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
See my reply to Will above. It’s a fair point that it’s not very helpful to spectators (besides indicating that the claim referred to should perhaps not be taken at face value) but my intention was to reply to Halstead rather than the audience.
In my view, it would be condescending if I was referring to most people, but not in this case. My point is that someone who has written about climate issues more than once in the past and who is considered something of an authority on climate issues within EA can be expected to have basic background knowledge on climate topics.
If we are going to have a hierarchical culture led by “thought leaders”, I think we should at least hold them to a certain standard.

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 12:06 UTC
−5 points
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in reply to: Will Bradshaw’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
I’m not sure that there are any attempted-objective assessments of degrowth (at least, not that I’ve found) and the post I linked provides an overview of the topic as understood by most of its key proponents. If I wanted to introduce people to EA, would it be inappropriate to offer them a copy of Doing Good Better?
I didn’t make specific arguments because frankly I shouldn’t need to. Someone who has written about climate change should not be making unequivocally untrue statements about basic aspects of a core strand of environmental economics. My assumption was that, given Halstead’s experience, his mischaracterizations could not have been due to a lack of knowledge.
This will probably be dogpiled due to “tone” but to be honest I have rewritten this comment twice to move away from clear statements of my views towards more EA-friendly language to make it as charitable as possible. There just aren’t many nice ways of saying that, well...
you see the problem?

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 11:48 UTC
6 points
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in reply to: Rubi J. Hudson’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
I don’t see a dichotomy between “ignoring the source of an argument and their potential biases” and downvoting a multi-paragraph comment on the grounds that it used less-than-charitable language about Silicone Valley billionaires.
Based on your final line I’m not sure we disagree?

anonymousEA 29 Dec 2021 11:44 UTC
−22 points
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in reply to: Will Bradshaw’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
I’m sorry but can you please explain how “techbro” is a slur?

anonymousEA 28 Dec 2021 23:18 UTC
−4 points
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in reply to: John G. Halstead’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
It seems that you fundamentally misunderstand degrowth. For an introduction I suggest this:
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025941

anonymousEA 28 Dec 2021 23:08 UTC
−6 points
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in reply to: Charles He’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
...um

anonymousEA 28 Dec 2021 23:04 UTC
−31 points
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in reply to: Lukas_Gloor’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
That sounds to me like a thing only cartoon villains would say.
...oh dear
This community is entering a rough patch, I feel.
What links here?
- Aaron Gertler 🔸's comment on Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics by CarlaZoeC (29 Dec 2021 10:02 UTC; 14 points)

anonymousEA 28 Dec 2021 22:58 UTC
−47 points
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in reply to: John G. Halstead’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
I don’t want to dip into discussions that don’t directly concern the issues I created this account to discuss, but your characterisation of degrowth as having “enormous humanitarian costs” “built in” is flatly untrue in a way that is obvious to anyone who has read any degrowth literature, e.g. Kallis or Hickel.
This is not the only time you have mischaracterised democratic and ecological positions on this post, please stop.

anonymousEA 28 Dec 2021 21:54 UTC
9 points
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in reply to: Davidmanheim’s comment on: Democratising Risk—or how EA deals with critics
I apologise, I don’t process it that way, I was simply using it as shorthand.