Indestructibly optimistic.
Dem0sthenes
Karma: −21
Anyone questioning participating in the movement given these revelations?
Do the new SBF revelations cause any reconsideration of this contest?
Can we run a formal critique of the criticism contest after I find out that my submissions didn’t win? I don’t have a pile of cash though I do have a lot of extra special bonus points for people.
What about critiques that you or another EA might not love but needs to read?
Shrug
Has EA engaged with the geopolitical risks of AI / AGI? For example regardless if AGI is developed, there are different risks if advanced AI is led and controlled by the CCP verus Open AI.
Thank you for the very thorough and well researched essay.
Thanks for sharing. I’ll check out your post.
Do you know how one might get another copy of the Precipice? I donated mine to a friend.
Yes 1000% on the cultural factors that have desensitized us to nuclear risk. Tyler Cowen has a nice series of posts out today on this subject: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/08/which-is-the-hingy-est-century.html
I might find time to go back and reread the Precipice and dig into the probabilities you reference. Those seem odd. It’s also odd because something that reduces humanity to subsistence levels for a very long time and eliminates ninety some odd percent of the population is absolutely catastrophic. I suppose I’m a hyberbolic discounter at heart and do think that while we should care about the far future, it’s really silly to get into the 1-1 logic that a human a billion years from now should be equally valued for decision making as one today or ten years from now.
This comment from another post seems very apropos for this discussion:
“You can read ungodly reams of essays defining effective altruism—which makes me wonder if the people who wrote them think that they are creating the greatest possible utility by using their time that way ”
Shouldn’t it be possible to do a simple chart of ballpark funding to longtermist versus neartermist causes over time from EA aligned orgs?
These types of questions deserve more focused dialogue and debate.
What’s your evidence for EA being big tent? Has there been a survey done of new EA members and their perception? Focus groups? Other qualitative research? Curious for the basis of your claims. Thanks much!
Lol full alignment of the state is not exactly a historically proud tradition… there were several notable efforts to align all the various sectors for the greater capacity of the state and society, strengthening all involved like how many small sticks bound together forms a much more robust whole.
What did you find specifically funny?
Hacker News is more adjacent (digitally native, young, affluent) than you might think. It is a bit different than EA but not as different as say the crowd in a Teamsters union hall or oil derrick in the North Sea.
Respectfully, I must inquire: what’s the actual personal attack that I have been, most egregiously I might add, accused of making? There’s nothing wrong with being an undergrad. That is a value neutral statement. Just saying consider the source my internet fren. No attack intended and labeling it as such to pile onto a mob of downvotes strikes me as a bit of cyberbullying, perhaps most accurately described as “white knighting” to use the parlance of the Very Online crowd. I must say though. I’m a little hurt and honestly a bit offended by your behavior. I would urge you to reflect on the moral certainty implicit in this interaction and what this says about the EA community.
I would like to address the cyberbullying that downvoted my comment here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jhCGX8Gwq44TmyPJv/ea-s-culture-and-thinking-are-severely-limiting-its-impact?commentId=WNqs7wH8WBEQq6xjb#WNqs7wH8WBEQq6xjb
Saying “it might be worthwhile to consider the source” is very different than “an ad homin” attack. Honestly the norm of never considering the source ignores the very practical cui bono school of public discourse and really just speaks again to the EA implicit academic naivete and assumptions.
What’s the future fund?
Anyone questioning participating in the movement given these revelations?