BrownHairedEevee

Karma: 5,119

I’m interested in effective altruism and longtermism broadly. The topics I’m interested in change over time; they include existential risks, climate change, wild animal welfare, alternative proteins, and longtermist global development.

A comment I’ve written about my EA origin story

Pronouns: she/her

“It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations will help you become whole.” —Uncle Iroh

BrownHairedEevee 14 Jul 2024 18:22 UTC
6 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Pat Myron’s comment on: Public transit advocacy as an effective cause area
Cheaper yes, but buses (even bus rapid transit, or BRT) don’t scale as well to large numbers of passengers. This 2009 study compares BRT, regular buses, light rail, and mass rapid transit (MRT), and finds that MRT has the lowest cost per thousand passenger-mile:
In concluding, the author concludes that, on average, “BRT can outperform LRT in providing a moderate to high level of service capacity at a moderate level of capital and operating costs in neighborhoods with moderate population and job densities.” While MRT are the most expensive to build, they can achieve over five times the capacity of BRT or LRT, and are associated with the largest positive impact on property values in the vicinity of stations.
Also you have to actually implement BRT to reap most of the benefits, which means no sharing lanes with other vehicles.

Public transit advocacy as an effective cause area

BrownHairedEevee12 Jul 2024 19:53 UTC

17 points

5 comments2 min readEA link

(sunyshore.substack.com)

BrownHairedEevee 10 Jul 2024 5:03 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: BrownHairedEevee’s comment on: EA Forum feature suggestion thread
Somewhat relatedly, the forum terms of use addendum currently does not mention the ForumMagnum software, which is GPL-v3. CEA itself might have obligations under the GPL to other contributors to the forum software (i.e. anyone who contributed to it and was not a CEA employee), like informing forum users of the terms and conditions of the GPL and not imposing further restrictions on them. I suggest looking into this to see if the EA Forum terms of service need to be modified in order to comply with the GPL. [edit: reworded to avoid being interpreted as legal advice]

BrownHairedEevee 10 Jul 2024 4:44 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: EA Forum feature suggestion thread
I think the EA Forum software does a poor job at communicating the license terms of forum posts. (For context, all new forum content published on or after 1 December 2022 has been licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.)
The current license statement is buried in the forum terms of use which can be reached from the “How to use the Forum” page in the navigation sidebar, so many readers may be unaware of the license terms if they have not registered on the forum and clicked through the license agreement. By contrast, many sites that use CC licenses, like Wikipedia and Stack Overflow, display a link to the license in the footer:
I suggest adding a footer to each new post or the sidebar stating something like the following:
EA Forum user content posted on or after 1 December 2022 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. This license only covers content created by Forum users; third-party content may be subject to other copyright restrictions.
The second part of this statement is relevant for content such as linkposts and posts that incorporate quotes, where there has been confusion about whether the CC license would apply to third-party content incorporated into forum posts (the license text explicitly states that it does not grant rights that the licensor does not control).
Note that rel=”license” should be added to the license link. If it’s necessary to explain more, you could link to another page, like how Stack Overflow links to this page stating that content from different periods of time are subject to different versions of CC BY-SA.

BrownHairedEevee 22 Jun 2024 3:12 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Austin’s comment on: AI, Animals, and Digital Minds 2024 - Retrospective
Thanks for everything you’ve done, Austin! I’m especially grateful to the Manifold community for having raised $1,203 for Shrimp Welfare Project (to date); it’s been one of the most popular charities on the platform.

BrownHairedEevee 21 Jun 2024 16:18 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: MHR’s comment on: How much funding do invertebrate welfare organizations get?
The Insect Institute (as Insect Welfare Project) got a $45k movement grant from ACE in June 2022. Shrimp Welfare Project got a $40k grant in the same round.
(I could be wrong but I think Insect Welfare Project was the working name of the Insect Institute prior to February 2023?)

[Question] How much funding do invertebrate welfare organizations get?

BrownHairedEevee20 Jun 2024 23:47 UTC

52 points

3 comments1 min readEA link

BrownHairedEevee 16 Jun 2024 15:39 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Dustin Moskovitz’s comment on: [Linkpost] An update from Good Ventures
Your second statement is basically right, though my personal view is they impose costs on the movement/EA brand and not just us personally.… I hope to see everything funded by a more diverse group of actors, so that their dollar and non-dollar costs are more distributed.
Do you think that these “PR” costs would be mitigated if there were more large (perhaps more obscure) donors? Also, do you think that “weird” stuff like artificial sentience should be funded at all or just not by Good Ventures?
[edit: see this other comment by Dustin]

BrownHairedEevee 16 Jun 2024 14:02 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Help Fund Insect Welfare Science
Is this separate from Insect Institute? The title of the post made me think that Insect Institute was rebranding to Arthropoda Foundation.

BrownHairedEevee 8 Jun 2024 18:24 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Elliot Temple’s comment on: New Forum License: Creative Commons
The CC license only covers Licensed Rights that the Licensor owns or is authorized to grant to the user. It does not come with a guarantee (or warranty) that the user has all the rights necessary to use the material. So no, third-party copyrights are not covered by the license.
However, Creative Commons (the organization) recommends that:
Licensors should also secure all rights necessary before applying our licenses so that the public can reuse the material as expected. Licensors should clearly mark any material not subject to the license. This includes other CC-licensed material, or material used under an exception or limitation to copyright.

BrownHairedEevee 8 Jun 2024 0:53 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: evelynciara’s Shortform
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak got some blowback for meeting with Elon Musk to talk about existential AIS stuff on Sky News, and that clip made it into this BritMonkey video criticizing the state of British politics. Starting at moment 1:10:57:
...the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom interviewing the richest man in the world, talking about AI in the context of the James Cameron Terminator films. I can barely believe I’m saying all of this.

BrownHairedEevee 23 May 2024 17:17 UTC
12 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: SaraAzubuike’s comment on: SaraAzubuike’s Quick takes
VSL isn’t directly comparable across countries. It’s a measure of how much money people in a given country would be willing to spend to save their own lives. For example, if someone would be willing to pay up to $125,000 to reduce the chance of them dying by 1%, then their VSL is $12.5 million. These amounts are lower in poor countries simply because the people there have less money, and it has nothing to do with whether their lives are more or less valuable.

BrownHairedEevee 21 May 2024 7:54 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: evelynciara’s Shortform
Disclaimer: This shortform contains advice about navigating unemployment benefits. I am not a lawyer or a social worker, and you should use caution when applying this advice to your specific unemployment insurance situation.
Tip for US residents: Depending on which state you live in, taking a work test can affect your eligibility for unemployment insurance.
Unemployment benefits are typically reduced based on the number of hours you’ve worked in a given week. For example, in New York, you are eligible for the full benefit rate if you worked 10 hours or less that week, 25-75% of the benefit rate if you worked 11-30 hours, and 0% if you worked more than 30 hours.^[1]
New York’s definition of work is really broad and includes “any activity that brings in or may bring in income at any time must be reported as work… even if you were not paid”. Specifically, “A working interview, where a prospective employer asks you to work—with or without pay—to demonstrate that you can do the job” is considered work.^[1]
Depending on the details of the work test, it may or may not count as work under your state’s rules, meaning that if it is unpaid, you are losing money by doing it. If so, consider asking for remuneration for the time you spend on the work test to offset the unemployment money you’d be giving up by doing it. Note, however, that getting paid may also reduce the amount of unemployment benefits you are eligible for (though not necessarily dollar for dollar).
1. ^
  Unemployment Insurance Claimant Handbook. NYS Department of Labor, pp. 20-21.

BrownHairedEevee 20 May 2024 18:32 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: jimrandomh’s comment on: Articles about recent OpenAI departures
It seems like these terms would constitute theft if the equity awards in question were actual shares of OpenAI rather than profit participation units (PPUs). When an employee is terminated, their unvested RSUs or options may be cancelled, but the company would have no right to claw back shares that are already vested as those are the employee’s property. Similarly, don’t PPUs belong to the employee, meaning that the company cannot “cancel” them without consideration in return?

BrownHairedEevee 18 May 2024 18:29 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: evelynciara’s Shortform
Are there currently any safety-conscious people on the OpenAI Board?

BrownHairedEevee 15 May 2024 17:25 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: evelynciara’s Shortform
Status: Fresh argument I just came up with. I welcome any feedback!
Allowing the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund to invest in stocks like any other national pension fund would enable the U.S. public to capture some of the profits from AGI-driven economic growth.
Currently, and uniquely among national pension funds, Social Security is only allowed to invest its reserves in non-marketable Treasury securities, which are very low-risk but also provide a low return on investment relative to the stock market. By contrast, the Government Pension Fund of Norway (also known as the Oil Fund) famously invests up to 60% of its assets in the global stock market, and the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund invests in a 50-50 split of stocks and bonds.^[1]
The Social Security Trust Fund, which is currently worth about $2.9 trillion, is expected to run out of reserves by 2034, as the retirement-age population increases. It has been proposed that allowing the Trust Fund to invest in stocks would allow it to remain solvent through the end of the century, avoiding the need to raise taxes or cut benefits (e.g. by raising the retirement age).^[2] However, this policy could put Social Security at risk of insolvency in the event of a stock market crash.^[3] Given that the stock market has returned about 10% per year for the past century, however, I am not very worried about this.^[4]
More to the point, if (and when) “transformative AI” precipitates an unprecedented economic boom, it is possible that a disproportionate share of the profits will accrue to the companies involved in the production of the AGI, rather than the economy as a whole. This includes companies directly involved in creating AGI, such as OpenAI (and its shareholder Microsoft) or Google DeepMind, and companies farther down the value chain, such as semiconductor manufacturers. If this happens, then owning shares of those companies will put the Social Security Trust Fund in a good position to benefit from the economic boom and distribute those gains to the public. Even if these companies don’t disproportionately benefit, and transformative AI juices the returns of the stock market as a whole, Social Security will be well positioned to capture those returns.
1. ^
  “How does GPIF construct its portfolio?” Government Pension Investment Fund.
2. ^
  Munnell, Alicia H., et al. “How would investing in equities have affected the Social Security trust fund?” Brookings Institution, 28 July 2016.
3. ^
  Marshall, David, and Genevieve Pham-Kanter. “Investing Social Security Trust Funds in the Stock Market.” Chicago Fed Letter, No. 148, December 1999.
4. ^
  “The average annualized return since [the S&P index’s] inception in 1928 through Dec. 31, 2023, is 9.90%.” (Investopedia)

BrownHairedEevee 14 May 2024 23:06 UTC
5 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Nuclear security seems like an interesting funding gap
I think Oppenheimer was a missed opportunity to raise money for the space. I would have liked it if Universal had pledged to donate 10% of their profits from the film to organizations advancing nuclear security.

BrownHairedEevee 9 May 2024 6:20 UTC
4 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: Updates on the EA catastrophic risk landscape
It looks to me like the nuclear security space isn’t in dire need of funding, despite MacArthur ending its nuclear security program. Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) ran a deficit in 2022 (they reported $19.5M in expenses versus $14M in revenues), but they had net assets of $79M, according to their Form 990 which can be found here. Likewise, Carnegie Endowment has no shortage of major funders. Is it important for the EA movement to make up for the funding shortfall?

BrownHairedEevee 6 May 2024 2:34 UTC
9 points
5 ∶ 5
in reply to: yanni kyriacos’s comment on: S-Risks: Fates Worse Than Extinction
Part of the definition of astronomical suffering is that it’s greater than any instances of suffering to date. But factory farming was unprecedented compared to anything before it, so I think the definition of s-risk could be applied retroactively to it.

BrownHairedEevee 4 May 2024 19:58 UTC
14 points
2 ∶ 0
on: AMA: Lewis Bollard, Program Director of Farm Animal Welfare at OpenPhil
What percent of farmed animal welfare advocacy does Open Phil fund? How valuable would it be for the cause area to have additional major funders?

BrownHairedEevee

Public tran­sit ad­vo­cacy as an effec­tive cause area

[Question] How much fund­ing do in­ver­te­brate welfare or­ga­ni­za­tions get?

Public transit advocacy as an effective cause area

[Question] How much funding do invertebrate welfare organizations get?