I am a sophomore at the University of Chicago. I am mostly interested in philosophy (particularly meta ethics, formal epistemology, and decision theory), economics, and entrepreneurship.
I also have a Substack where I post about philosophy (ethics, epistemology, EA, and other stuff). Find it here: https://substack.com/@irrationalitycommunity?utm_source=user-menu.
Very interesting points. Here are a few other things to think about:
1. I think there are very few people whose primary motivation is helping others, so we shouldn’t empirically expect them to be doing the most good because they represent a very small portion of the population. This is especially true if you think (which I do) that the vast majority of people who do good are 1) (consciously or unconsciously) signaling for social status or 2) not doing good very effectively (the people who are are a much smaller subgroup because doing non-effective good is easy). It would be very surprising, however, if those who try to do good effectively aren’t doing much better than those who aren’t, as individuals, on average, but it seems unlikely to me (though feel free to throw some stats that will change my mind!).
2. I’m very skeptical that “the defensibility of morality as the pursuit of greatness depends on how sophisticated our cultural conceptions of greatness are.” Could you give more reason for why you think this?
3. I’m skeptical that 1) searching for equanimity is truly the best thing and 2) that we have good and tractable methods of achieving it. Perhaps people would be better off as being more Buddhist on the margin, but, to me, it seems like (thoughtfully!) getting the heavy positive tail end results and be really careful and thoughtful about negatives leads to a much better off society.
Let me know what you think!
Yep, I think this is true. The point is that, given AI stays aligned which is stated there, the best thing for a country to do would be to accelerate capabilities. You’re right, however, that its not an argument against AI being an existential threat (I’ll make a note to make this more clear) — it’s more a point for acceleration.
He did a whole interview on this that can be found here:
How do you generally respond to evolutionary debunking arguments and the epistemological problem for moral realism (how we acquire facts about the moral truth), especially considering that, unlike mathematics, there are no empirical feedback loops to work off of (i.e. you can’t go out and check if the facts fit with the external world)? It seems to me like we wouldn’t think our mathematical intuitions if 1) we didn’t have the empirical feedback loops or 2) the world told us that math didn’t work sometimes.
I think it would both be very effective and make for a very interesting video to donate to effective charities regarding potential existential risks — climate, nuclear, bioterrorism, AI, etc. Perhaps you could briefly mention some things like “future lives are highly underrepresented”, “the expected value can be potentially great if the chances of some risk are high enough”, ect. Would you consider a video on this? What’s holding the channel back from it?
First of all, you are correct—I will do that now.
Second, yea I hear that—I will revise
I find myself in a very similar situation. I grew up an Orthodox Jew, and although no longer, I still feel a part of the broader Jewish community which has implications on my giving.
Whenever I tell my Orthodox friends about EA, I always emphasize that it isn’t a zero-sum game, and they can separate their own community and egalitarian impulses by doing both sorts of charity, keeping in mind the effective nature of EA charities.
I just wished more people would be more effective even if in terms of their own community. I typically find myself talking to people once they realizing that they should be more effective in the egalitarian impulses, but the message doesn’t seem to come through as much within their own communities.
What should an undergrad looking to do earn to give or direct work learn in terms of skills that would be most useful in your opinion?
That’s pretty fair. I’m pretty certain that that’s the case to some extent, but I also think @Amber Dawn is correct that people just thought it was pascal’s mugging, when I think it is a tad more nuanced than that (see: my reply to Amber’s comment).
I appreciate the comment! I think people generally make a mistake with this one by saying that the probabilities for atheist heaven and religious heaven are equal. Not saying that I have a particular opinion on what those probabilities may look like but more so that it would be weird to me if none of the religious arguments for particular religions bring you up even a tiny, little bit (say the mass revelation argument for Judaism, ect). Let me know what you think!
Appreciate the response! This is very helpful so thanks.