ColdButtonIssues

Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

• ColdButtonIssues 13 Apr 2022 13:39 UTC

  15 points

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  in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  Yeah, I enjoyed your article and I linked back to it in the text, but perhaps I could have been clearer that I was referencing your work!

  I think you’re right. I also think it’s a weakness in EA that we have to or have chosen to couch outreach to Republicans/​US conservatives in such careful terms. I think we should in general just be welcome aboard to most people!

  There are some issues where the ideological divide seems pretty stark. For instance, I don’t know if a majority of EAs support literal open borders but I’d be surprised if support for massive increases in immigration to developed countries wasn’t a majority position among EAs. That’s a big gap between EAs and the modal Republican.

• ColdButtonIssues 13 Apr 2022 13:45 UTC

  19 points

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  in reply to: BrownHairedEevee’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  I agree that people shouldn’t make themselves miserable working in a hostile environment, and that some people can reasonably expect to be less welcomed as you pointed out.

  I think the American Enterprise Institute is a good example of an alternative way to work on the right. As for Niskanen, my impression is that they’re no longer viewed as aligned with the right at all. The conservative Capital Research Center describes them as “nominally libertarian” and talks about how they’re funded by left-wing donors like Open Society.

• ColdButtonIssues 13 Apr 2022 13:57 UTC

  26 points

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  in reply to: Rhyss’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  I don’t think most EAs have an obligation to involve themselves in politics at all and I don’t think every young EA should join the GOP- but I do think :

  “Young effective altruists in the United States interested in using public policy to make the world better should almost all be Republicans.”

  The people I would most like to think about this post are:

  1. EAs who are conservative/​centrist. Since I think there are too few EAs within the Republican Party, I think they should keep in mind that they can probably do more good than a similar EA who is contemplating entering politics on the left. They might still conclude that earning-to-give or direct work is more valuable, but the expected value of entering politics on the US right is higher, imo, than entering politics on the left.

  2. People who care a ton about a specific issue to the point other issues seem small and think politics/​public policy can contribute to this field and think the Republican Party isn’t actively working against them on this issue. People really worried about near-term AGI risk or pandemics I think could fall into this bucket. I think animal welfare advocates or open borders advocates would not. Another exception would be YIMBYs in blue cities, where all the politicians are Democrats.

  Re: acquaintance- she took a job working on the specific issue she happens to be more conservative on.

• ColdButtonIssues 13 Apr 2022 14:02 UTC

  12 points

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  in reply to: RedStateBlueState’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  I think campaign labor and campaign donations are distributed pretty inefficiently. Lots of money pours into races that appear hopeless (for example). So for instance I think you could work on a primary campaign for a US House candidate without meaningfully influencing which party controls the House.

  Think tanks do seem like a better choice for people who think the Republicans, are not merely worse but extraordinarily worse.

• ColdButtonIssues 13 Apr 2022 15:32 UTC

  20 points

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  in reply to: MatthewDahlhausen’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  This piece is sincere. I think the Republican Party is a really powerful institution that will make really important decisions in the future. Individuals within the party (bureaucrats, politicians) and those affiliated with them (activists, donors, think tankers, writers) will continue to influence the United States and the world.

  There also seems to be very few EAs in the party or aligned even though EAs would work through the party and the broader US right on all kinds of issues like X-risk or pandemic preparedness and so forth.

  I also think it’s probably easier to rise in the GOP than the Democratic Party if you’re a young person, especially one with elite credentials, because there will be less competition.

• ColdButtonIssues 14 Apr 2022 14:59 UTC

  11 points

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  in reply to: IanDavidMoss’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  Thanks, Ian (and others).

  Thinking about my original claim that “[y]oung effective altruists in the United States interested in using public policy to make the world better should almost all be Republicans.”

  I’ve been convinced that it’s overstated because of:

  a) people who use public policy without engaging in obviously partisan politics like academics and other researchers.

  b) effective altruists working on urban issues in blue cities or state-level issues in CA, NY, or other blue states where the Republican Party is really weak.

  c) People working on a subset of issues where the Democratic Party is more promising. I personally think this subset is very small and the only issue I would confidently place here is animal welfare (if you’re involved in Republican/​conservative politics let me know) but I know some EAs in the comments would add more issues.

  I think a revised claim that I’m still confident of would be “young effective altruists in the United States interested in using partisan politics to make the world better should almost all be Republicans.”

  This claim could still be wrong if my overall reasoning is wrong or the number of policy-oriented EAs working on animal issues or some other issues is a lot bigger than I think

Effec­tive Altru­ism Isn’t on TV.

• ColdButtonIssues 21 Apr 2022 14:29 UTC

  7 points

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  in reply to: Elika’s comment on: Effec­tive Altru­ism Isn’t on TV.

  I think more people being exposed to GiveWell would be good. Richer audiences with disposable incomes (CNBC/​Bloomberg watchers?) I think would be a good target audience.

  I do agree that not every part of EA would benefit from general awareness- debates on moral realism, competing theories of utilitarianism and so forth.

  More so, the absence of EA on TV just surprised me. I didn’t walk around with a clear estimate of how many mentions in my head, but I thought GiveWell would be more prominent for sure.

• ColdButtonIssues 25 Apr 2022 21:50 UTC

  24 points

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  on: Solv­ing the repli­ca­tion crisis (FTX pro­posal)

  Project looks really cool. I appreciate you sharing this. I hope this project continues to grow.

  I really want to know what FTX ended up funding since the rejected grants I know of looked really promising to me.

• ColdButtonIssues 27 Apr 2022 21:38 UTC

  6 points

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  on: Snakebites kill 100,000 peo­ple ev­ery year, here’s what you should know

  Fascinating. Have any public health departments tried snake extirpation in certain areas? (Or is that an obviously flawed approach?)

The Case for a Strate­gic U.S. Coal Re­serve for Cli­mate and Catastrophes

• ColdButtonIssues 5 May 2022 2:23 UTC

  2 points

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  in reply to: Jelle Donders’s comment on: Effec­tive Altru­ism Isn’t on TV.

  I agree on the value of the documentary. I honestly wish I had that skill set, I think it could be a really big deal.

• ColdButtonIssues 8 May 2022 1:58 UTC

  3 points

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  in reply to: Seo Sanghyeon’s comment on: The Case for a Strate­gic U.S. Coal Re­serve for Cli­mate and Catastrophes

  I’m not an expert on the technical aspects of coal storage. I don’t think they would be insurmountable because it’s been seriously proposed by some countries as a way to insure against supply disruptions or price spikes. (Germany, India)

  But it might be more of an issue on the scale I’m envisioning.

Don’t Be Com­forted by Failed Apocalypses

• ColdButtonIssues 17 May 2022 14:48 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: ryancbriggs’s comment on: Don’t Be Com­forted by Failed Apocalypses

  Hey Ryan,

  I think I agree with the religious comparison- they do seem similar to me and I liked that part of your post. I just think failed apocalyptic predictions don’t give that much evidence that we can discount future apocalyptic predictions.

  Religious apocalypses are maybe a little different because I think (but don’t know) that most people who predict the end of the world via God are claiming that all possible worlds end, not just predicting an event that will normally occur.

  I mostly think anthropic reasoning is good (but there is a voice in my head telling me I’m crazy whenever I try to apply it).

• ColdButtonIssues 17 May 2022 14:54 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: tobycrisford’s comment on: Don’t Be Com­forted by Failed Apocalypses

  Hi Toby,

  Can’t we imagine 100 people doing that experiment. People will get different results- some more heads than they “should” and some fewer heads than they “should.” But the sample means will cluster around the real rate of heads. So any observer won’t know if their result has too many heads or too few. So they go with their naive estimate.

  With apocalypses, you know by definition you’re one of the observers that wasn’t wiped out. So I do think this reasoning works. If I’m wrong or my explanation makes no sense, please let me know!

• ColdButtonIssues 17 May 2022 18:37 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: tobycrisford’s comment on: Don’t Be Com­forted by Failed Apocalypses

  In the tile case, the observers on average will be correct. Some will get too many heads, some few. But the observers on average will be correct. You won’t know whether you should adjust your personal estimate.

  In the anthropic case, the observers on average will zero apocalypses no matter how common apocalypses are.

  Imagine if in the tile case, everyone who was about to get more heads than average was killed by an assassin and the assassin told you what they were doing. Then when you did the experiment and lived, you would know your estimate was biased.

• ColdButtonIssues 17 May 2022 21:47 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: tobycrisford’s comment on: Don’t Be Com­forted by Failed Apocalypses

  No, because it’s possible you observe blue tile or red tile.

  You observe things (alive) or don’t observe things (not alive.)

  In the first situation, the observer knows multiple facts about the world could be observed. Not so in the second case.

• ColdButtonIssues 18 May 2022 11:49 UTC

  1 point

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  on: A New Idea for Fi­nanc­ing Philanthropy

  I think this is a cute idea and could go viral. A best case scenario would be something where your challenge goes viral like the Ice Bucket Challenge or becomes traditional like giving $$$ to the Salvation Army at Christmas.

  Are you involved with a charity that you would want to use this for?