I believe the situation is similar for harms to others. Acts that make you a non-Muslim are a much narrower set compared to sinful actions. A thief still remains a Muslim/āChristian/āJew as far as I know. Even murderers are still considered as believers depending on the denomination.
emre kaplanšø
Karma: 2,101
3 doubts about veganism
I keep thinking about this. Even though Iām super sceptical about causal inferences that back into the past, one explanation for the decline of Mohism in China is that their insistence on frugality wasnāt popular among elites and they lost elite support.
I agree that nutrition science is not robust enough, but I have never been convinced by arguments against healthiness of a fully plant-based diet.
As you note, vegans live longer in observational studies.
Furthermore, trans fats and heavy metals are very likely to be bad for health. Consuming animal products exposes you to these. (A lot of) Saturated fat might also be bad for you and animal products have more of that. I agree that vegans might be missing out on some beneficial nutrients but there are also some harms avoided. Iām not sure which effect dominates.
Iām not sure what the right proportion of E2Gers should be. But I tend to think having thoughtful people who put their money where their mouth is and do not depend on EA financially is valuable for community epistemics. Iād like having more of them around.
Thank you, very interesting and much needed. Are any of the RCTs used in this meta-analysis public? What are their designs like?
Thoughts on sinĀgle isĀsue vs. multi isĀsue positioning
This is a very important research area. Thank you. I especially liked the empirical testing approaches section.
PsyĀcholĀogy reĀsearch idenĀtiĀfyĀing a bias against harm reduction
The UK offers better access as a conference location for international participants compared to the US or the EU.
Iām being invited to conferences in different parts of the world as a Turkish citizen, and visa processes for the US and the EU have gotten a lot more difficult lately. Iām unable to even get a visa appointment for several European countries, and my appointment for the US visa was scheduled 16 months out. I believe the situation is similar for visa applicants from other countries. The UK currently offers the smoothest process with timelines of only a few weeks. Conference organizers that seek applications from all over the world could choose the UK over other options.
I wonder what can be done to make people more comfortable praising powerful people in EA without feeling like sycophants.
A while ago I saw Dustin Moskovitz commenting on the EA Forum. I thought about expressing my positive impressions of his presence and how incredible it was that he even engaged. I didnāt do that because it felt like sycophancy. The next day he deleted his account. I donāt think my comment would have changed anything in that instance, but I still regretted not commenting.
In general, writing criticism feels more virtuous than writing praise. I used to avoid praising people who had power over me, but now that attitude seems misguided to me. While Iām glad that EA provided an environment where I could feel comfortable criticising the leadership, Iām unhappy about ending up in a situation where occupying leadership positions in EA feels like a curse to potential candidates.
Many community members agree that there is a leadership vacuum in EA. That should lead us to believe people in leadership positions should be rewarded more than they currently are. Part of that reward could be encouragement and I am personally committing to comment on things I like about EA more often.
Iām confused how the following scenario is consistent with meeting the resolution criteria. The resolution criteria imply at least 50% decrease in AI company revenues:
Remmelt thinks there will likely be a crash by 2029, since AI companies are burning too much cash on data centers to run products undergoing commodification. He thinks itās most plausible though that the crash happens on the investment side, and that model subscription revenues could end up being mostly maintained.
I donāt think the current systems are able to pass the Turing test yet. Quoting from Metaculus admins:
āGiven evidence from previous Loebner prize transcripts ā specifically that the chatbots were asked Winograd schema questions ā we interpret the Loebner silver criteria to be an adversarial test conducted by reasonably well informed judges, as opposed to one featuring judges with no or very little domain knowledge.ā
Thank you for the detailed reply. Iām personally not satisfied by moral theories that attribute intrinsic moral significance to species-membership but I wonāt be available for further discussion.
Utilitarianism is one of the more āmoderateā views in the field because at the very least it admits that individual insects have less welfare capacity than typical humans. Unitarian rights-based theories claim that right to life is equally strong for all sentient beings, which make insects an even bigger priority. What is your view on moral patienthood?
MeaĀsuraĀbilĀity is DouĀbly ImĀporĀtant in AnĀiĀmal Advocacy
Thank you for your research!
I agree!