emre kaplan

Karma: 929

Moderate Versus Radical NGOs

emre kaplan22 Sep 2023 0:15 UTC

12 points

1 comment1 min readEA link

(onlinelibrary.wiley.com)

emre kaplan 26 Aug 2023 14:54 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Habryka’s comment on: Open Thread: July—September 2023
I disagree with the following:
”very strong evidence against “the world in 100 years will look kind of similar to what it looks like today”.”
Growth is an important kind of change. Arguing against the possibility of some kind of extreme growth makes it more difficult to argue that the future will be very different. Let me frame it this way:
Scenario → Technological “progress” under scenario
1. AI singularity → Extreme progress within this century
2. AI doom → Extreme “progress” within this century
3. Constant growth → Moderate progress within this century, very extreme progress in 8200 years
4. Collapse through climate change, political instability, war → Technological decline
5. Stagnation/slowdown → Weak progress within this century
Most of the mainstream audience mostly give credence in the scenarios 3, 4 and 5. The scenario 3 is the scenario with the highest technological progress. The blog post is mostly spent on refuting the scenario 3 by explaining the difficulty and rareness of the growth and technological change. This argument makes people give more credence in scenarios 4 and especially 5 rather than 1 and 2, since the scenarios 1 and 2 also involve a lot of technological progress.
For these reasons, I’m more inclined to believe that an introductory blog post should be more focused on assessing the possibility of 4 and 5 rather than 3.
Arguing against 3 is still important, as it is decision-relevant on the questions of whether philanthropic resources should be spent now or later. But it doesn’t look like this topic makes a good intro blog-post for AI risk.

emre kaplan 22 Aug 2023 21:32 UTC
4 points
1 ∶ 1
in reply to: Brad West’s comment on: Recommendations for charities for animal suffering offsets?
I’m in favour of everyone donating to effective charities. Even according to deontological theories I think donating and avoiding harm are two different responsibilities and people doing harm still have responsibilities/opportunities to donate. Donating is an amazing thing to do regardless of what other actions a person might be undertaking.
Nonetheless, I’m also very much in favour of having true beliefs about things and taking moral uncertainty seriously. If something doesn’t seem right to me under a somewhat plausible theory I’m going to say so even if I don’t believe in that theory myself. My language in the original comment is also appropriately hedged(I suspect, it might be the case).
I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from donating anywhere. But for offsetting I have uncertainties so I’m going to state them. I agree that one of the more important wrongdoings committed by consuming animal products is creating more demand.
But I’m not certain that eating meat doesn’t wrong the animal eaten at all according to deontological theories.
1. I’m not sure that the right to bodily integrity ends after death. It might be the case desecrating the bodies of dead individuals might be wronging them. I’m aware that claiming that dead people can be wronged brings in a lot of problems in moral theorising, but I can’t dismiss this claim entirely.
2. It seems very odd to me that if you hire an individual to kill X and X gets killed, you certainly wrong X; but if someone kills X in advance with the expectation that they will get paid for it and retroactively asks to get paid for killing X, paying them doesn’t wrong X.
And if eating meat wrongs the animal being eaten then offsetting is not a Pareto improvement so the case for “offsetting” becomes weaker.
To be honest you can view these implications as weaknesses of deontological theories, I personally do.
None of this weakens the case for donating to effective charities either. Donating money to effective charities is pretty robust according to many different moral theories.

emre kaplan 22 Aug 2023 18:35 UTC
1 point
3 ∶ 4
on: Recommendations for charities for animal suffering offsets?
This avoids the question but I suspect meat-eating offsets are morally dubious from a standpoint that takes moral uncertainty seriously.
Emitting carbon then donating to offset it is in some sense ex-ante Pareto improvement. It’s rather easier to say “nobody was made worse-off”.(though it gets much more complicated when you consider the impact on people that are not born yet)
It might be the case that eating meat wrongs the animal being eaten, and that animal is not helped by the donation. So the case for offsetting is weaker here.

emre kaplan 13 Aug 2023 19:24 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Quick takes
I also liked this quote from Obama on a similar theme. The advice is pretty common for very good reasons but hearing it from former POTUS had more emotional strength on me:
”how do we sustain our own sense of hope, drive, vision, and motivation? And how do we dream big? For me, at least, it was not a straight line. It wasn’t a steady progression. It was an evolution that took place over time as I tried to align what I believed most deeply with what I saw around me and with my own actions.
(...)
The first stage is just figuring out what you really believe. What’s really important to you, not what you pretend is important to you. And what are you willing to risk or sacrifice for it? The next phase is then you test that against the world, and the world kicks you in the teeth. It says, “You may think that this is important, but we’ve got other ideas. And who are you? You can’t change anything.”
Then you go through a phase of trying to develop skills, courage, and resilience. You try to fit your actions to the scale of whatever influence you have. I came to Chicago and I’m working on the South Side, trying to get a park cleaned up or trying to get a school improved. Sometimes I’m succeeding, a lot of times I’m failing. But over time, you start getting a little bit of confidence with some small victories. That then gives you the power to analyze and say, “Here’s what worked, here’s what didn’t. Here’s what I need more of in order to achieve the vision or the goals that I have.” Now, let me try to take it to the next level, which means then some more failure and some more frustration because you’re trying to expand the orbit of your impact.
I think it’s that iterative process. It’s not that you come up with a grand theory of “here’s how I’m going to change the world” and then suddenly it all just goes according to clockwork. At least not for me. For me, it was much more about trying to be the person I wanted to believe I was. And at each phase, challenging myself and testing myself against the world to see if, in fact, I could have an impact and make a difference. Over time, you’ll surprise yourself, and it turns out that you can.”
The problem with this advice is that many people in EA don’t think we have enough time to slowly build up. If you think EA might take control of the future within the next 15 years, you don’t have much time to build skills in the first half of your career and exercise power after you have 30 years of experience. There is an extreme sense of urgency, and I am not sure what’s the right response.

emre kaplan 12 Aug 2023 0:30 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: akash’s comment on: How useful is it to use a slavery/factory farming comparison as a decision making heuristic?
To clarify, it wasn’t morally supererogatory to boycott speaking with slave-owners. Often you have to speak with wrongdoers to convince them.
Lay also did a lot of things that were great. I focused on the example in the question.

emre kaplan 11 Aug 2023 23:51 UTC
16 points
4 ∶ 0
on: How useful is it to use a slavery/factory farming comparison as a decision making heuristic?
1. I think what Benjamin Lay did(never speaking with slave-owners except sneering at them) was not morally required. It probably was not even morally supererogatory.
2. I also keep thinking that there is some tension between historical reference points used in EA and the current work done by EA organisations. We like talking about how Bentham and Mill had radical proposals on a lot of things including boldly asking England and France to unilaterally emancipate all their colonies. Benjamin Lay is another such example. On the other hand, the work EA organisations do focuses a lot on win-win or incremental solutions, not being confrontational, being realistic about our asks, and picking our fights strategically^[1]. A lot of writing on EA community-building has advice like “avoid moralising”, “don’t alienate people” which is the exact opposite of what Benjamin Lay does.
3. There was a recent attempt to create a norm against sitting at tables where animals are being eaten. It didn’t go well. You can read more about the lessons learnt here.
1. ^
  I should note that Bentham too picked his fights to some extent as he never published his writings on legalising homosexuality. His address to the French delegates on colonies also tries to frame emancipation as a win-win solution. But it’s still very bold. In the context of or existential risks, it doesn’t seem to me that people make as bold proposals to policy makers.

emre kaplan 9 Aug 2023 18:43 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Is every moral theory inherently consequentialist?
You might find the pages 7-8 in this pdf helpful.

emre kaplan 9 Aug 2023 8:23 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Open Thread: July—September 2023
The blog post “This can’t go on” is quite prominent in the introductory reading lists to AI Safety. I really struggle to see why. Most of the content in the post is about why the growth we currently have is very unusual and why we can’t have economic growth forever. I think mainstream audience is already OK with that and that’s a reason they are sceptical to AI boom scenarios. When I first read that post I was very confused. After organising a few reading groups other people seem to have similar confusions too. It’s weird to argue from “look, we can’t grow forever, growth is very rare” to “we might have explosive growth in our lifetimes.” A similar reaction here.

emre kaplan 7 Aug 2023 16:29 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Why isn’t radical life extension the focus of EA?
This is also relevant.

emre kaplan’s Quick takes

emre kaplan6 Aug 2023 10:02 UTC

5 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

emre kaplan 3 Aug 2023 16:29 UTC
6 points
4 ∶ 2
in reply to: MatthewDahlhausen’s comment on: EA Funds organisational update: Open Philanthropy matching and distancing
I downvoted this comment because of the following section: “I’ve often cringed at EAIF grants”. I don’t think people should be using sentences like “I’m disgusted by your work” “I cringe at your work” in a cooperative environment. There are better ways to make very strong or even devastating criticisms.

emre kaplan 2 Aug 2023 14:27 UTC
5 points
1 ∶ 0
on: How many people are neartermist and have high P(doom)?
I’d also be pretty interested to get to know someone who thinks AI doom is inevitable and works to reduce suffering while we still have some power. I feel like some people who find AI alignment almost impossibly intractable should work on neartermist causes but I’ve never seen that happen.

emre kaplan 29 Jul 2023 17:43 UTC
24 points
7 ∶ 2
on: Why isn’t there a charity evaluator for longtermist projects?
My somewhat “cynical” answer is that an important function of charity evaluation organisations is to challenge the status quo. If everyone is funding animal shelters and you think that’s ineffective, you might as well create an organisation to redirect funding to more effective interventions. But longtermism as a field is already “owned” by EA, so EAs are unlikely to feel a need to shake up the establishment there.

emre kaplan 9 Jun 2023 14:14 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Virtue ethics is utilitarianism for humans
Much of the interesting and difficult stuff about morality happens when there are different conflicting concerns at the stage. Virtue-ethicists on these matters seem much more handwavy than utilitarians or deontologists to me. Take for example the dilemma of what you should do if your host prepared you food with animal products without knowing that you are a vegan. Should you eat it? For utilitarians, it takes plenty of work to calculate the consequences but at least there is a rigorous process to base your policy upon. On page 142, paragraph 3 of this article, you may find a virtue-ethics treatment of the same dilemma, which seems very handwavy to me.
Of course one article doesn’t prove a trend, but often what I have seen is “oh there is this virtue, and there is this another virtue. Sometimes they might get into conflict, the virtue ethics is about finding the moderation between them. You will accomplish this through practical wisdom and getting more life experience” which is not informative at all. I don’t think this process is better than trying to calculate the benefits and costs of your important actions.

emre kaplan 5 Jun 2023 20:04 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Open Thread: April — June 2023
What are best resources on what to expect during and after the development of Transformative AI, especially in optimistic scenarios where we have a future? There are of course a lot of resources on risk scenarios and how to prepare for them. I’m more curious about what other cause areas and individuals should expect and how they should best prepare for the future. For example, a paper that would fit that description would be “Economic Growth under Transformative AI” by Trammell and Korinek.

emre kaplan 3 Jun 2023 11:31 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Change my mind: Veganism entails trade-offs, and health is one of the axes
Points of agreement:
I agree that it is important to refrain from claiming that a vegan diet is the optimal choice for overall health.
It is crucial to emphasize the need for careful planning and the inclusion of necessary supplements when making people vegan.
Points of disagreement:
I don’t see conclusive evidence that a vegan diet is less healthy than some other diet. While it is plausible that consuming small quantities of animal products could be more healthy compared to a strictly vegan diet, the evidence supporting such claims doesn’t seem conclusive to me. The studies I have encountered predominantly compare average meat eaters with average vegans. My conclusion from the existing body of evidence is that “whole foods plant-based diets are sufficiently healthy. We don’t know yet what precise diet is optimal for most people”
I do not agree that we are obligated to highlight the non-health-related costs of veganism. The inconveniences associated with this lifestyle are already apparent to most individuals based on their firsthand experiences. Furthermore, my personal experience suggests that people generally overestimate the difficulties involved and often find it easier than anticipated after trying it. Reiterating the challenges may actually lead to further misconceptions.
In other contexts, such as promoting alternative diets or lifestyles, it does not strike me as dishonest if people omit mentioning the non-health costs. For instance, consuming berries is healthy, despite them being among the more expensive fruits. If someone doesn’t mention the costs of berries when they say “you should eat 1 portion of berries everyday” that seems OK to me.
In that context it seems more important to not deny the costs rather than actively bringing them up.
Things I’m not sure whether we agree about:
We should stick precisely to the statement of Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and keep mentioning this in our conversations about veganism:
“It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”

emre kaplan 23 May 2023 19:46 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Richard Y Chappell’s comment on: Review of Animal Liberation Now
Thank you very much for taking your time to provide the quotes, I really appreciate it.

emre kaplan 23 May 2023 19:21 UTC
14 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Review of Animal Liberation Now
Thank you for the review, I look forward to reading the book. I’m curious whether there are any changes to Singer’s views on killing animals and replaceability arguments in the books. In the previous versions of Animal Liberation and Practical Ethics, Peter Singer seems to argue at the same time that:
1. If a being is not self-aware and doesn’t have a continuous psychological identity, then the satisfaction of their future preferences doesn’t matter.
2. The creation of a happy sentient being is net-positive.
The combination of these two views seems contradictory to me. If the creation of a happy sentient being is good, surely the continuation of that life should also be good.

emre kaplan 12 May 2023 7:45 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Brian_Tomasik’s comment on: How much funging is there with donations to different EA animal charities?
I don’t really have a good response to your main question as I can’t speak on behalf of the grantmakers. But I might at least contribute in the following way:
In our first and second years, EA Animal Welfare Fund and other funders were willing to fund us more than we requested. So if some individual donor gave money to us in our first and second years, we would basically ask for less money from EA Animal Welfare Fund and other sources.
This is no longer the case as EA Animal Welfare Fund doesn’t make grants larger than $100k very often. For that reason, additional individual donations have a counterfactual positive impact on our growth. But I don’t know if additional individual contributions lead the grantmakers to grant less money to us. That is something grantmakers can speak about.

emre kaplan

Moder­ate Ver­sus Rad­i­cal NGOs

emre ka­plan’s Quick takes

Moderate Versus Radical NGOs

emre kaplan’s Quick takes