I am an Economist working at the Financial Risk Department of Banco de España (Spanish Central Bank). I was born in 1977 and I have recently finished my PhD Thesis (See ORCID webpage: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1623-0957 ).
Arturo Macias
Karma: 17
Naturalistic dualism
Social Science in its epistemological context
I think that the real divide is CAFO (Concentrated Animal Farming Operation) species vs non-CAFO. Runminants (sheep and beef) are at least partially fed on pastures, so they do not live in permanently overcrowded farms, with high agression and stress.
Between the two main CAFO species (chicken and pork) I have not strong opinions: given neuron counts and brain weigth, I think pigs are more morally valuable than chicken, while chicken live worse lives: hard to decide.
While I find vegetarianism utopic, in my view, CAFOs can be overcame (see here).
I think this is the main priority (max [Expected loss reduction/euro]) in catastrophic risks. This could make even a nuclear terrorist attack (or nuclear tactical war) into a massive event. In fact the passivity of military planners regarding this threat is suprising.
The Shrimp is not very complex either: not enough nodes in the network.
Because the counterexample is based on the intuition of complexity. Also because the experiments about sleep of Massimmi and Tononi (cited) suggest that some IIT version is true; regarding the letter, you have Hoel answer in the text.
Arthropod (non) sentience
Yes, there are some measures, but beware of Goodhart Law: if you over-incentive consensus, you get herd behaviour. Many “consensus building” mechanisms end producing the same kind of problems as “peer review”: conformity, statu quo bias, and above all, guild mentality. In Law, external measures of goodness (that counterbalance statu quo bias) are even more difficult to create than in academy...
https://www.palladiummag.com/2024/08/02/the-academic-culture-of-fraud/
I disagree. Blindness is the main attribute of Justice. Rawls and the Romans were right. Meritocracy is nice at the gates of the career, but how do you measure merit among the chief justices? Any mechanism different from the lottery will become a battlefield.
Moreover, I don’t believe in merit among the experienced Justices. Law is not like chess or Physics. It is about consensus, and intuitiveness. There is not a real object to be discovered by the jurisconsult, but a mix of system, continuity, social agreement, and a bit of game theoretical intuitions. Who is the “best” at that?
Regarding the views of the population, I am for judicial review by the legislature, but not in the late stages of the career, because the closer to the high court is the political intervention, the higher becomes the risk of capture.
I find that ending “factory farming” in the western world is possible in less than 40 years. The real problem here is veganism: people need animal proteins, and by pushing veganism, the animal welfare activist look like crazy bolsheviks.
What is the animal welfare equivalent of socialdemocracy? In my view, expanding the rumninants husbandry (becuase the true horror is farmed hens and pork), killing fishes by electrical stunning instead of suffocation, and above all, join with western farmers for total protectionism, because farmers are for efficiency (and cruelty) mostly for fear of foreing competition.
At the end, electrical utilities are the main lobby for climate change mitigation. Western farmers can be the same for animal welfare.
But even if you think that more can be done, what do you think as its use to create “expert panels” including the Supreme Court?
It looks so natural that it is increíble that Sortition (among professional justices) for High Courts is not universal.
I would use it for expert panels (above all, the Supreme Court), never for the executive or the Legislative.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PyqPr4z76Z8xGZL22/sortition
I entirely support your cause, while is there any similar regulation to avoid the importation of Frankenchicken meat? In animal welfare, for me the most important policy is to support protectionism in the meat/dairy/eggs markets. Animal welfare activist and farmers have a common enemy: imports.
We are designed for social computation, not for individual rationality. Beyond the papers I comment in the pre-print, this book is a modern synthesis of Cultural Evolution Theory:
Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture and Synthesize the Social Sciences
https://www.amazon.es/Cultural-Evolution-Darwinian-Synthesize-Sciences/dp/0226520447
Thank you for your reference of Gonzalez’s paper.
Of course! The detailed historical examples. No amount of abstract knowledge can substitute historical discussion.
In fact the academic version (the logic of political survival) is for me less interesting, because it is too much based on data analysis instead of cases.
Thank you very much! I think you will find this interesting:
The second epigraph is where it gets interesting for you:
This article surveys the evolutionary and game theoretical literature and suggests a new synthesis in the nature-nurture controversy. Gintian strong reciprocity is proposed as the main synthetic theory for evolutionary anthropology, and the thesis here defended is that the humanization process has been mainly one of “de-instinctivation”, that is, the substitution of hardwired behavior by the capabilities to handle cultural objects.
Simple feedback: read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845
Think about politics in Darwinian terms: who survives the process?
It is well known. The Pax Democrática theory is well known (Bueno de Mesquita “the dictators handbook” is a fantastic reference) and suggests that the commitment capabilities and electoral incentives make democratic war unlikely and democratic alliances powerful.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vjQ5BhKnDyY35dXXf/chomsky-vs-pax-democratica
Thank you very much for the links. As an economist, I have always find growth the most important fact of economics, and growth theory the less interesting economic discipline.
What do we get out of this? Perhaps a better functional form for production functions?
But production functions are the most defective part of economic modelling. A way to allow economists to avoid the complexity of intersectoral linkages and explicit technology modelling [https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-540-75751-1]? I am a great fan of market clearing, and rational expectations are a tolerable simplification. But production functions are a form of surrender.
Most of the models in growth theory look to me far away from both policy recommendations, or econometric forecasting. They are “explanatory”, and mostly removed from observables. The Von Neumann criticism of complex models (“give me 4 parameters and I can draw an elephant, with 5 it can move its tail”) was the first I thought when I was taught the Romer model.
I have read both the RP and the post against neuron counts, and I find them unconvincing. Let’s take this: “There are studies that show increased volume of brain regions correlated with valanced experience, such as a study showing that cortical thickness in a particular region increased along with pain sensitivity”.
There is no way to know what is related to “pain sensitivity”, because all we know about consciousness comes from extrapolation. The only valanced experience you can observe is your own. Even if you find that a given part of the brain is related to pain, what matters most is not the size of that part of the brain but if there is a self to feel the pain.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3nLDxEhJwqBEtgwJc/arthropod-non-sentience
There are not “royal paths” to understand consciousness. There is a “pretty hard problem of consciousness” between you and any exercise of consciousness attribution and no checklist nor neural similarity will easily bridge that gap.