Animals already exist on earth independently of humans. The difference with introducing life on Mars is that humans would take the decision to make the decision and expend the resources to do so.
Darren_Tindall
Karma: 82
Highly suggest producing some diagrams
I think EA’s obsession with maximization is an issue and impacts inclusivity of our the community (similar thinking, similar life experiences, similar socio-economic status, similar gender/sex/etc).
Holden Karnofsky summarises this really well in a blog (EA is about maximization, and maximization is perilous):
If you’re maximizing X, you’re asking for trouble by default. You risk breaking/downplaying/shortchanging lots of things that aren’t X, which may be important in ways you’re not seeing. Maximizing X conceptually means putting everything else aside for X — a terrible idea unless you’re really sure you have the right X.
EA is about maximizing how much good we do. What does that mean? None of us really knows. EA is about maximizing a property of the world that we’re conceptually confused about, can’t reliably define or measure, and have massive disagreements about even within EA. By default, that seems like a recipe for trouble.
I think the FTX scandal raises some serious questions about just how well the community is positioned to forecast the future and hence direct large amounts of money that can actually have a net negative impact and how the EA community can essentially be a big echo chamber.
While the EA community claims to favour wild ideas, I think the community is still relatively narrowly focused on a few select cause areas even those these are highly uncertain and we may be completely unaware of other issues. I know the known unknowns have been covered by Toby Ord and others but I think we need to make sure we continue to seek diverse experiences, skills, thinking, and disciplines.
Important point—religions evolve. Which would raise the question of whether Christianity would still be Christianity. But many people draw upon core religious teaching and integrate it into their moral compasses or insights into reality—what many of us coin as ‘spirituality’. For example, Jesus as a role model and Christian insights on love-unity, ‘grace’, empathy and compassion. Buddhist insights on interconnectedness and direct experience. Islamic themes of surrender. It would not be unconceivable that conflict between dogma and secular ‘truths’ would drive one’s religious believes to evolve.
I agree with some other commenters, some better paragraphing would make it an easier read and it doesn’t discuss the existing EA stance enough.
I do think you’re onto something here though: “EA assessments of climate change tend to be far too simplistic, failing to grasp how the interplay between felt temperature rises, soil fertility collapse, fresh water depletion and biodiversity loss are creating the perfect conditions for a major collapse in global food production. ”
In general, and understandably, there seems to be a hyper focus on carbon emission driven CC given this is a prime driver of CC. However, underlining the issue is our extractive and destructive approach to nature that ultimately destabilises various earth systems (biochemical flows, habitat destruction and land-use change, ocean acidification, etc etc) .
For this reason I really like the Planetary Boundaries framework which takes a more systems-oriented view https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
“The scientists proposed quantitative planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come. Crossing these boundaries increases the risk of generating large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental changes. Since then the planetary boundaries framework has generated enormous interest within science, policy, and practice.”
Beat me to it, pressure from bottom up and top down are probably both needed. Also, could we say in a way that most politicians (those that don’t directly influence the given topic) can also be considered technically part of the wider public since they are media consumers. Sometimes this can lead to sideways pressure.
Can we really say that crime reduces urban densities? Wouldn’t the socio-economics come first, followed by crime as a multiplier on the impact on destruction of a community and its health.
Separately to the above, I think you make a really good point about foot patrolling. There is a link here to criminology and environmental psychology of why and where crime occurs to consider.
I’ll try not to butcher the history too much as I am an engineer/designer but I understand that the prevailing view was that crime in inner cities was seen as a natural behaviour of the poorer masses as a result of their innate psychology. Researchers gradually discovered that its really environment shapes much of make drives a crime to occur (noting the variety of crime that can occur).
So to your point on patrolling large areas, then getting large-scale Urban Planning is absolutely key here. Sprawl plagues North America and many developing countries and results in what you said. Good Urban Planning would facilitate better policing as well as a range of other factors that improve well-being, health, and productivity.
Side story—I recently visited Limerick, Ireland for a project. The city has previously been plagued by drug crime and gang-land family violence. The police there stated that it was a combination of hard-line policing on violence AND community policing (building relationship with the wider community) which changed the situation. So I’m sure there are times when hard-line and tough policing is needed.
So all-in-all, does the solution start with urban planning?
My apologies for missing this! Its worth noting that lighting alone doesn’t make a space safer (in feeling or reality), it is a mixture of factors with other people (bystanders or allies) being around. My lighting designer colleagues did some interesting work on this here with Plan International and Monash University .
The CPTED page on wiki gives a good starter but if you want to read more, you can have a look at this academic paper.
Hi, my day job is in Urban Resilience Consulting (so less on technical and academic side) and I’d love to potentially hear about retreats and work in this area.
You should also be aware of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering’s work in this area via their Safer Complex Systems program. They’d probably welcome some collaboration.
One solution area worth adding to this potentially is Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) (I’m biased because its part of my day-job).
CPTED is a theory of discouraging crime through architecture and urban planning. Think consideration for circulation routes, lighting, ‘eyes on the street’, and encouraging positive use of space.
Embedding crime prevention on a project-by-project basis would have a highly scalable impact. In the UK, Aus, and in Europe, some local and city authorities have local urban plans which usually require designs to have a positive impact in reducing crime and increasing community safety through consideration for security.
So I wonder if expanding this through planning policy and connecting it further into social treatments for crime could have a large impact.
While will not treat the direct economic and social causes of crime, it would:
Provide the environment to help stop crime propagating.
Support well-designed cities, indirectly improving mental, physical, and social health.
Supporting urban environments more functional and more economically productive.
Further to this, one other important area is Fear of Crime. Which designing environments in a specific way can directly reduce.
You said a few times about the difficulty of using the breath as an object of meditation. I can’t understate the importance of noting that friction as just another object.
My 10-day retreat was the most productive and important experience in meditation I’ve had.
I also completely agree on Metta (Loving-Kindness) being an absolutely fantastic technique.
I would also highlight Shinzen Young’s work as another systematic approach (he’s also been working on a ‘enlightenment tech’ with UofArizona (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2021/jun/29/hacking-enlightenment-can-ultrasound-help-you-transcend-reality)
I’d be interested to here your views beyond suffering/pleasure on how the cognitive benefits could fit in here given that these could translate into useful abilities in waking life:
normal dreams are important for processing of experiences, memories, etc.
some evidence that lucid dreaming can improve motor performance in real life (not sure how robust)
likewise I’d expect there to be creative utility to influence a world without physical limitations (not dissimilar to video games)
Couldn’t resist clicking on this!
Going to put forward a provocation here: If nightmares are an expression of trauma, then wouldn’t it make most sense to target the root cause of poor mental health/trauma/PTSD?
Another provocation: can nightmares (presumably those not routed directly in a deeply traumatic event) be positive in anyway? One theory is that nightmares simulate threats and act out scenarios which could provide a survival benefit.
This leads me to a really interesting question - can nightmares (and dreams) be influenced to play an important role in healing trauma? Could teaching people to lucid dream give a person a sense of control again?
Interesting to see the sheer diversity of grants! How open is the Infra fund to funding career transition (e.g. grad school)? I previously applied in a rush but probably need to refine my application and justification a more. I’d be curious to know how open the fund is to this type of activity.
Also, I was curious, I see some individuals are receiving upwards of $50k for a few months of overhead while others are receiving well below $50k for 12 months worth of overhead. Can you explain the reasons behind this? Did these higher-granted individuals specifically develop a development plan justifying the associated costs or was the higher grant for other reasons.
I have doubts that biodiversity loss is dangerous or liable to cascade
Why not? Out of interest?
How is value is derived from conscious experience? Don’t you mean capacity to suffer is determined by degree of conscious experience , which in turn makes individual animals important/having value. This does not mean that species are valueless which then begs the question of, how are species valuable.
I am no ecologist or environmental scientist but I see biodiversity loss as a process not an outcome. The outcome is increased vulnerability of ecosystems to collapse.
You say you haven’t seen a good argument for (2). What argument’s have you read? I think the link between this and Civilizational Resilience is clear. For example, if important pollinator species go extinct this would have consequences for global food security and this would also likely be a risk multiplier for multiple X-Risks. The Future of Life Institute has a decent article. There is also likely a very high degree of error in our assessment of this area, so the implications could be a lot worse (or better) than we think given that natural systems (of which animals play essential roles in) I would be conservative here.
We also don’t have to spent all of EA resources on this. We can spend some. It doesn’t have to be a binary, prioritisation is just a best evidenced-based guest after all with significant uncertainty.
I also think from a moralistic point of view, conservation of nature and biodiversity, is important for the well-being of humans, for spiritual reasons, given how exposure to nature has deep implications for our well-being (connectedness to nature is positive correlated to altruism for example—though there is the question of cause and effect). We shouldn’t only be concerned about reducing X-Risks but also maximising human well-being and self-actualisation. Its the reason S-Risks are now a thing.
I agree with you especially on productivity losses. I lived in Lagos for a few months. My sense was that since I was there kidnappings and general civil unrest has increased (perhaps the former more-so outside of Lagos).
Interesting about your comments on blackouts. I lived in both a villa with its own generator as well as an estate with its own back-up gen. Surely an EA hub could find a location which provides this?
Have you seen Eko Atlantic by any chance? Has this made much progress and I wonder if this could this be a potential location in the medium future if the project actually manifests.
“Launch/promote EA for Africans. To be really frank, Cape Town is not Africa. Lagos or Nairobi (or even Joburg) would make a better base if this goal is the priority.”
Important comment—there is certainly a benefit for EA to balance productivity and efficiency with insulating itself from the issues it seeks to impact (e.g. GH&WB). Lived experience of a city like Lagos or Nairobi could be extremely valuable for many over access to surfing and good views of coastline. People willing to tackle the short and medium term problems of Africa should be willing to get knee deep in the reality.
My impressions is that safety in Lagos ha degraded further in the last few years so I wonder how this could be managed.
Not necessarily. It will depend heavily on the type of intervention and the issue . If the issue is rooted in entrenched cultural attitudes due to low education, conservative attitudes, and entrenched traditional values as I suspect would be the case in many low-income countries then an intervention may be prohibitively more expensive to implement in a low-income country.
I’ve yet to see someone suggest actions. You should consider reaching out to them, to OpenPhil, or find someone in the EA forum who ha contacts at the channel/company.
I wouldn’t be surprised if their staff frequent the forum?
As far as I am aware you can edit Youtube videos once published so perhaps there is still the opportunity to update the video with a snippet noting the potential implications for animal welfare.
The topics they cover are very complex and speculative so its unsurprising that they don’t hit the mark 100% of the time.