Disenangling “nature.”
It is my favorite thing, but I want to know its actual value.
Is it replaceable. Is it useful. Is it morally repugnant. Is it our responsibility. Is it valuable.
“I asked my questions. And then I discovered a whole world I never knew. That’s my trouble with questions. I still don’t know how to take them back.”
EcologyInterventions
I may not have downvoted under normal conditions for the reasons you mentioned. Generally I upvote new posters who seem unfamiliar with EA, or leave comments to encourage further engagement. I definitely don’t like to see the votes fall below 0 without explanation (unless its damaging to forum etiquette in some way). But three factors made me willing to discourage engagement in this present form:
Two other posts by the same author were made in the span of a few days, both of which seem like they could be worked over more carefully before placing into one of the limited slots on the front page.
I don’t think this forum is an appropriate space to develop one individual’s philosophy, without something special it has to contribute… I’m not able to articulate this clearly, please trust I am struggling to capture something I think is important and have pattern matched from other people as well, sorry I cannot do it justice.
Especially not if all these posts are to be made without additional detail/careful consideration. In its current state I think this post is better as a shortform or a blog post while the series is being composed.
The author states they intend it to be a series and this magnified all the issues I had above. It would be welcome for a post or two, but an entire series magnifies its impact too far. I was responding to that.
It is not clear in this post how it affects EA. Especially because EA already addresses minds rather than bodies, I think?
As to why I am critical of this posts quality, I think its stating something already familiar to most people on this forum, and further I believe it can be summarized in a few sentences:
We are minds, not bodies. If we had to pick one, most of us would pick keeping our mind over keeping our body. “Me” is a collection of ideas, memories, opinions, personality traits and other symbolic abstractions. “Me” is made of thought.
Given that we are essentially thought, what is thought? (not addressed in this post)
We must study who we are, not just study how to invent and use technology.
It is also not clearly relevant to EA, as it is currently written. Presumably further posts would cover that, but it wasn’t delved into in this post, so I felt comfortable downvoting on those grounds.
My thoughts on the content of this post:
Personally I don’t think it is clear we must study and know who we are, even though it is one of my favorite activities! It can be terribly useful, but it can also be not very influential on other domains. Its hard to tell if this will lead to something influential or something important but non-consequential.Post script:
I will attempt to give similar feedback on the other posts, but I did not feel I had time to do so and was especially discouraged when there were three in a row to try to provide feedback on.Hope this gives a face to the downvoters. I am also discouraged by lack of engagement and wonder why on earth I was downvoted. But I try to chalk it up to how it takes time to learn all the things involved in EA and I don’t know what things are obvious to regulars who have worked on this for years. I understand they don’t always have time to walk me through something that is already established elsewhere, even though I don’t always know where the “elsewhere” is.
Try to approach disagreements with curiosity. ;)
I wish you the best in the development and refinement of your philosophy. And all your further conversations!
I’m going to flip the script a bit.
Are you doing important, impactful, good things?
Does EAG recognize them as novel, unexplored, needing a boost?
You are doing important impactful good things! That’s what matters!! Of course recognition is important and you absolutely deserve recognition. In addition you are completely reasonable to feel bad about things you know technically shouldn’t be so hurtful. But you’re human and they ARE hurtful. It’s okay to feel hurt. Please recognize your desires and needs. Live your best life for yourself and everyone.
EAG isn’t measuring how good you are, at best how communicable your efforts are. Some things are crutial but mundane. (They can be the most important!) Some things are exciting but too in-depth. Some things are simply not communicated verbally. Some things have finally achieved recognition and success. And some things are neglected within EA.
Congratulations on being in one of these (or other) vital areas!
Keep up the good work, we need you! And others like you!
Additional thoughts: If I’m one of the people with best EA ideas, then I’d be much more worried about how dire the situation is! It’s perfectly normal not to be one of the hundreds of people out of the millions best suited for this years conversation. The movement has gotten huge. It is tracking so many subjects, and that’s a wonderful thing. Unfortunately not everyone gets to go. That’s reality and it’s not your or anyone’s fault.
I’m happiest thinking of it as a great event for great people doing some specialized things. They aren’t perfect and EA is so. so. SO. much bigger than EAG.
Take care. I’m excited for you and where you go next.
Hi! I worked with BTI distribution and mineral oil as a solution to reducing mosquito populations in some environmentally-sensitive parts of the USA. These areas were hit badly with West Nile and started this mosquito reduction program in response. This was my first question too! As a field tech I was given biased information, but my online research agreed with the lines my environmentally-friendly company fed me:
BTI is a bacteria that only mosquitoes and 1 species of midges (in my part of the world) eat and are harmed by. The BTI ruptures their stomach and they die. Very targeted, used widely and safely for years. In my case, it was distributed in a pellet mostly made of corncob so it could be cast into water and dissolve. There are other containment media that exist, but my point is its easy and cheap to make reasonable distribution methods.
It would disappear the next week when I returned to check mosquito populations. I did not see buildup over the course of several months, which is notable for the small puddles of standing water I was dealing with. I don’t think the bacteria would survive or change the microbiome of the environment, but I also don’t expect people to research into that. But, as I was working in populated areas, it seems safe to say this would be really far down on the list of impacts on the microbiome. There are organic versions of BTI as well. (although I don’t ascribe to the benefits of organic)
I opened this to make sure the length estimate was short, discovered it was short, and couldn’t help reading it.
I think I learned something.
- 31 Aug 2022 0:15 UTC; 2 points) 's comment on Be More Succinct by (
This is great, thank you. Honestly it feels a little telling that this has barely been explored? Despite being THE x-risk? I get that the intervention point happens before it gets to this point, but knowing the problem is pretty core to prevention.
A force smarter/more powerful than us is scary, no matter what form it takes. But we (EA) feels a little swept up in one particular vision of AI timelines that doesn’t feel terribly grounded. I understand its important to assume the worst, but its also important to imagine what would be realistic and then intermingle the two. Maybe this is why the EA approach to AI risk feels blinkered to me. So much focus is on the worst possible outcome and far less on the most plausible outcome?
(or maybe I’m just outside the circles and all this is ground being trodden, I’m just not privy to it)
The reason for the enforcement of style within the forum is not to keep out the wisdom and experience of ordinary people, but in the long run, to increase it. It seems a bit backwards that keeping posts out would increases the amount of posts but consider this:
If the forum was a lot of spam about miracle cures and flat earth, few people would be think it’s a good place to post their ideas about agricultural reform.
If the forum had lots of good ideas but they were all 1000 page books, few people could read them, and the comments could not discuss one point together since there would be dozens to respond to.
If the forum had lots of good ideas but they were all tweets, few nuanced ideas could get discussed.
I also think very few ideas will be missed because I don’t think it’s too steep of a barrier to ask people to write their main points in a few sentences. I think it is still inclusive even of people with very different backgrounds.
If people had to sort through unrelated poetry, personal rants, and many repeats of the same old ideas, the good points would be difficult to find. Ironically, those people/ideas would get drowned out if there were hundreds of posts without much content. So we ask everyone to be as concise as possible.
Encouraging posts that are concise, encouraging friendliness, encouraging criticism, are all are for the sake of keeping the discussion productive and moving forward.
“I think the lack of discussion and materials and research is probably due to resource optimisation towards what people think is highest on the priority list(?).” I don’t think it’s as deliberate as you seem to think!
If you are talking about the forum, I think familiarity and precedent are a strong influence. (And a smidge popularity.) If you are talking about 8000h: I don’t know. Maybe fewer people on the team find it compelling so they never quite get around to it? Or they think it would have less of a positive impact since there are other resources around?
Edit: Please create a resource post on one or all of these. I have been trying to link people to some of the best EA thinking on these topics, and like you I didn’t find a ton of material.
How realistic are the optimistic views that technology will be able to deliver, fast enough, green energy, mitigate climate change, and bring us back under all the remaining planetary boundaries?
Predictions by International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook versus reality:How likely is it that we won’t run out of any crucial resource in the next century?
On a planet of finite resources, it doesn’t seem like we can continue growing indefinitely – Under business-as-usual, when would we reach plateau/collapse?
Think of how foolish it would have been to throttle energy/resource use 100 years ago to protect ourselves from running out at 100-years-ago levels of use. When we start to run out, we have many options: alternative resources, efficient use, dilution, recycling, etc. This will extend the clock many fold. Resources may be finite, but need for them is not constant. I am confident they will become outdated in time, as resources historically have thusfar.
There are lots of very concerning problems arising from overapplying GDP, capitalism, gerontocracy, and neglecting environmental issues. But the above particular points do not seem substantive to me.
Excellent work making the world a better place. Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed your piece!
I just wanted to say I appreciate you writing this, and I agree the world ought to tolerate and celebrate weirdness more than we currently do. Break-out thinking is inconvenient and useless most of the time, but extremely beneficial some of the time. Obviously weird beliefs ought to be put to the test like any other, but we should celebrate it too, and especially safeguard its generation. I have heard we have become less welcoming to unorthodox worldviews, although it may have been inaccurate.
A nitpick I have is your particular examples: Spiritual reality and UFOs are both famous and have lots of people researching them. I presume all good evidence would have already been found and there isn’t much proof. (but for that very reason they are illustrative examples easily parsed) I’m more positive towards totally unheard of things.
In principle at least. But I’m not terribly good at judging against the grain even though I wish I were, and I try to be.
So thank you, all you high-openness, low agreeableness, prospecting personalities.
Please do continue to write. This kind of explanation is so much more clear about the personal experience of what it feels like to communicate and share effectively. I haven’t been here long and am not a community builder, but the other posts I have seen about outreach—while accurate, admirably composed, and intellectually rigorous—have somehow lacked guidance. I read them and think: “Yeah! That’s perfect, I should do that!” But I knew in the day-to-day I would never remember the phrasing they so carefully calibrated unless I had several hours of practice by say, running an introduction to EA booth
Thinking about further posts of EA and the wider world:
EA is rightly working on what seems to be the most important cause areas. How do we reconcile that with people/groups who have no interest in doing that. Like say, a group dedicated to all things rock and roll. Convince them EA is also important? Do we help them to their own goal, to optimize rock ‘n roll? Encourage them to move on to the next most effective thing, whatever it is? Try to find ways rock ‘n roll can synergize with another EA project? (rock ’n roll with lyrics about EA?) Don’t waste time acknowledging a difference of opinion and moving on to find better low hanging fruit?I’m sure people have discussed this endlessly before, but that’s it’s what I’m currently thinking about.
- Is it possible for EA to remain nuanced and be more welcoming to newcomers? A distinction for discussions on topics like this one. by 15 Jul 2022 7:03 UTC; 35 points) (
- What is the journey to caring more about 1) others and 2) what is really true even if it is inconvenient? by 16 Jul 2022 11:31 UTC; 6 points) (
I can’t figure out why this didn’t get more traction. This post seems extremely relevant and brought up well considered points that I’m surprised I’ve never encountered before. This subject seems fundamental to life changing career decisions, and highly relevant to both EA earning to give and EA career impacts. I also can’t spot any surface level presentation reasons it might have gotten overlooked or prematurely dismissed.
Edit: Ah, I think what happened is it was evaluated by the suggested actions when scrolling to see the outcomes/results. I am also much less positive these are good approaches to addressing the problem. They are offered without much evidence, and transparently acknowledged as such, but it’s potentially the posts biggest most obvious fault.
Excellent post.
I would like to hear why this was downvoted.
“The key point is that plenty of knowledge and data will be dismissed, never published, and/or never encountered by the people with funding to effect change (such as EA grant-makers) simply because of its producers’ position within the geopolitics of knowledge. ” This is terrible. And I believe EA does care about solving it, though maybe not as much as it should.
”As much as any other part of society, power/knowledge shapes academic research.” Science is not the same as social media, but we are in full agreement that it is subject to influence and bias. I would say EA is highly interested in decreasing that power/influence dynamic.
”EA may be inflicting epistemic violence, imperialism, and coloniality through the solutions it funds and research design it undertakes.” Aid is optional and voluntary. Even so I believe indigenous ways of thinking and living will be unintentionally damaged and lost by charitable efforts. I believe this is acceptable if the good is greater than the harm, though we may be unqualified to determine the extent of the harm. I don’t think simply consulting and asking how indigenous peoples want to be helped would address your critique? The alternative, as I understand it, is to operate via their ways of being, (if it is even possible) which is unclear how to speak their language, absorb their morals, understand their lives, and do this all efficiently so as to provide the most benefit. We already recognize that giving directly and cash transfers are some of the most effective ways to assist.
”When common pool resources are attributed monetary value, they become ontologically fungible” Its necessary to compare values and prioritize actions. Without trying to estimate value and compare across them, we resort to the art of acting based on general principles and we risk worse imbalanced actions. I am open to alternative methods but I maintain they need to be as universal and grounded in truth as possible. This is because we are acting for the world, and all its cultures. While I am sympathetic that we often steer wrong—for example by favoring legible metrics over unquantifiable unknowns and often asking the wrong questions—we at least acknowledge these problems and are making efforts to combat known dangers. Again, as far as I know, there are no better alternatives in other cultures. We all struggle with this.
”It is colonial for EA to believe that it can know what will be most the effective solution for people in the Global South, without even consulting them”—This is why EA starts with “saving lives” as it seems to be universally valuable. And EA does consult with the global south, as shown by give directly, cash transfers, and many other EA efforts. (Because it works according to measured outcomes, not because it avoids neocolonialism.)
”Through anticipatory philanthropic pledges, the ultrawealthy gain social capital. ” Are you saying the world is worse off every time massive donations are made—it does more damage than benefit? I assume you are not going that far. If all donations stopped, I think the ultrawealthy would still gain social capital from their wealth in other (worse) ways. Even if I agree capitalistic systems are a horrible trap, I’m not sure that altruistic donations have that much to do with perpetuating capitalism. I don’t think capitalism would be closer to falling apart or be revealed as a scam. I don’t think charitable giving especially subverts judgement of societies/cultures/systems. Its an observed rate of donations. We can compare it to rates of charitable effort under other systems/cultures/situations/regulations. If its better, its better. If its worse, its worse.
My semi-outsider perspective might be useful here:
On the one hand I feel like I can barely absorb any content from the EA forums because the posts are so technical and dry that I can barely get through any one of the many painstakingly crafted masterpieces that are posted here every day. I would learn and engage so much more from an increase in conversational writing and a decrease in formality/careful wording.
On the other hand I am deeply impressed that this forum exists at all. It is harboring so many high-quality, deep soliloquies and extensive rational discussions that I’m afraid to disturb whatever magic allowed this to place to grow. We so desperately need a place for this kind of dry discussion to be welcomed and where it can bear fruit. I don’t know anywhere else that is like here.
So my answer: The atmosphere would be risked with such a change, leading to bad odds. By all means write more engaging material, but put it everywhere else but here. =P
Epistemic status: dubious
I love the disagree votes happening here.
What We Owe the Future: A Flashcard Summary
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1539708817
(Not my deck, but definitely an EA anki deck!)
More information here.
A butterfly idea is in early stages. It needs creative input, branching out in possibility space, and expansion.
Versus most forum posts are here for critique, hardening and winnowing down.
My gut reaction is that EA wants to convince people for the right reasons and clips seem too short to really engage with that.
Assuming TikTok videos are very good at changing behavior, I have some doubts they would be convincing people of the reasons and methods that make EA, EA. I feel worried that if we made a bunch of tiktok videos, and they were successful, they would shortly be overrun by more successful tiktok videos that replicate all the good sounding stuff, without having the core substance. Maybe that’s a silly thing to get hung up on. I don’t feel the same way about youtube explainers. And I can see a bunch of short clips that snappily intro people to single EA ideas being amazing.
I don’t really have a strong opinion on the what the right move is, but I wanted to communicate why I am hesitating.
Since I actually did this work myself (in the US) I am going to go into too much information about my experience. Read the bolded bits if you want the summary of important points without the juicy mosquito-abatement details.
I was checking weekly anywhere we historically found mosquito larvae, including adding new locations any time another location was found—much the same as this program does: using a tablet, satellite map, and gps locations.
I witnessed the larvae populations reducing in response in many places and in other places maintaining a high number of larvae (but no further development stages). It did prevent there from being pupae except if returned to the site late. Pupae are the next stage ( 7-10 days) when the mosquito baby quits eating to morph (and BTI no longer works). As you can see this happens so rapidly that it is important to return to sites weekly and not a day late. Fortunately pupae can also be killed in an environmentally friendly fashion with mineral oil[1] although I rarely (twice per week over ~60? weekly sites in a 7mi2, 35hr a week with recordkeeping, car travel, etc) needed to resort to that.
As mentioned, the biggest obstacle is finding every transient water body, from large to small, and getting people to let you treat their puddles, ditches, water troughs, etc etc etc. I did not scout for new locations although I was encouraged by my employers to ask around for new problem locations. Having an updated map is really helpful but eradication seems unlikely. Another issue is that mosquitoes can fly up to 2 miles (iirc) so if they aren’t breeding nearby they still might by flying in.
Regarding missed locations: I myself skipped some waterbodies when I was scared to trespass. Also water appears and disappears sometimes without much discernable cause, which made it annoyingly important to check empty sites repeatedly. Also obstacles like barb wire fences, and uh… when you are totally alone cattle are really big and I didn’t want to find out if they would suddenly decide to charge me. Instead I kept hoping the next day they wouldn’t be on that side of the pasture.
We loaded up on equipment once every couple of weeks when we ran out of supplies, but I would scan/travel/work closer to 80% of my time. I figured out the faster routes to locations and how I preferred to chain them together through the season. (Although the water does keep moving around as water appears or dries up.) Recording was a simple paper datasheet of larvae/pupae seen and how much treatment I used. I would take a picture at the end of the week to submit so I never had to go visit a central office. And the tablet would track my movements if I might be lying about actually visiting locations. No one ever checked, I’m pretty sure, but if there was a complaint they could. And when working alone it is reallllly tempting to eat 2 hour lunches and skip long, hot, slogs that end in a mostly-dried-up tiny puddle.
They mentioned having much better results when hiring undergrads. I suspect its because undergrads believe they have to be thorough much more than mid-career hires. Also the biology knowledge helps. Honestly I wish they had checked our work more, because I at the end of the season I found out I had been deploying double the treatment what everyone else was. By accident. It was still within permitted doses, but… uh… oops.
In summary: It was highly cheap and effective in the spots I was active. The main issue is coverage of transient water and returning weekly.
Pupae still need to breath. BVA Mineral oil (only a few drops) makes the surface tension at the top too strong for the pupae to break the surface to breath, for about 2-5 minutes. Long enough for them to suffocate. I assume other tiny air breathing species would die too, but not the critters that don’t need air or the slightly-larger critters who can survive longer without air. These are mostly temporary standing-water areas with temporary populations so its likely to be easily repopulated after a suffocation event.
The oil naturally breaks down (from sunlight I think?) and disappears. There was no build up. It looked bad to see shiny oil across natural water but it dissipated in an hour or so, and left no residue. What really convinced me was encountering natural oils in the water from cattails that looked a lot worse than the mineral oil I was using. Oil is a natural thing too, sometimes.
Oil doesn’t work for large bodies of water or flowing water, because the choppy water breaks the oil surface sheet. But mosquitoes don’t live there because they need still water to breed for some reason. Oil is still used in water around the edges of ponds where vegetation keeps the surface still.