BrownHairedEevee

• BrownHairedEevee 16 Apr 2024 2:16 UTC

  7 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jason’s comment on: Two ques­tions about trans­gen­der in­clu­sion at EAG London

  I asked in public because I believe that multiple people could benefit from the answer and that’s more efficient than multiple people asking the same question in private emails. Regardless, I don’t care about the post’s karma or what anyone thinks about my decision to ask publicly except for the EA Forum staff or the EAG organizers.

[Question] Two ques­tions about trans­gen­der in­clu­sion at EAG London

• BrownHairedEevee 14 Apr 2024 19:56 UTC

  4 points

  4 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Lorenzo Buonanno’s comment on: Jeroen De Ryck’s Quick takes

  I suggested showing the April Fools’ Day tag next to posts on the frontpage, like so:

  

• BrownHairedEevee 11 Apr 2024 16:54 UTC

  4 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: BrianK’s comment on: [Link Post] Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. It’s a dis­as­trous idea

  For example, most members want to eat animals, and even if they know that it is wrong to eat those among them raised in cruel conditions, they will continue to do so.

  I think that people continue eating animals because they’re not aware of the cruel conditions in which many animals are raised, not because they like animal cruelty. Generally, when people are made aware of those cruel conditions, they oppose them. For example, a Data for Progress survey in 2022 found that 80% of respondents supported California’s Farm Animal Confinement Initiative (Prop 12); the percentage of support did not vary much by party affiliation. I imagine that people living on a lunar or Martian colony will be living in closer quarters to any farmed animals there than people on Earth do, since the colonies would be smaller. So if anything, they’d be more aware of the animals’ living conditions and would be more motivated to ensure the animals’ well-being.

• BrownHairedEevee 7 Apr 2024 18:15 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jason’s comment on: Us­ing the tax sys­tem and stock mar­ket to donate more: a few ba­sic strategies

  Good point. My total state and local tax bill was higher than $10k, so I would have been able to take a $10k SALT deduction, meaning I would have had to donate at least $3,850 in order to itemize. I donated about $2.5k of my own money (plus $2.5k in employer matches), so it made sense to take the standard deduction.

  The standard deduction in 2024 is $14,600, so I’d have to claim $10k SALT deduction + at least $4.6k charitable deductions or other itemized deductions in order to benefit from itemizing. I could easily do that. I’m not looking forward to itemizing my tax bill, haha :)

  For what it’s worth, the SALT deduction cap might sunset at the end of 2025, so it may make sense for more people to itemize charitable deductions again.

• BrownHairedEevee 7 Apr 2024 16:38 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Us­ing the tax sys­tem and stock mar­ket to donate more: a few ba­sic strategies

  Thanks for sharing this!

  I opt for strategy 2 (donating appreciated assets). The standard deduction is so high ($14,600 in 2024) that I would have to donate several times that amount for the benefit of itemizing to outweigh giving up the standard deduction. Taking itemized deductions also involves a lot of paperwork. By donating assets, at least I get to realize the value of the assets for charitable purposes without paying capital gains taxes.

• BrownHairedEevee 4 Apr 2024 4:44 UTC

  13 points

  3 ∶ 1

  in reply to: defun’s comment on: de­fun’s Quick takes

  I’ve been thinking about the meat eater problem a lot lately, and while I think it’s worth discussing, I’ve realized that poverty reduction isn’t to blame for farmed animal suffering.

  (Content note: dense math incoming)

  Assume that humans’ utility as a function of income is $U\left(c\right)=\ln c$ (i.e. isoelastic utility with $\eta =1$), and the demand for meat is $Q\left(c\right)=A{c}^{\epsilon }$ where $\epsilon$ is the income elasticity of demand. Per Engel’s law, $\epsilon$ is typically between 0 and 1. As long as $\epsilon <\eta$, $U^{\prime }\left(c\right)>Q^{\prime }\left(c\right)$ at low incomes and $U^{\prime }\left(c\right)<Q^{\prime }\left(c\right)$ at high incomes.

  

  For simplicity, I am assuming that the animal welfare impact of meat production is negative and proportional to $-Q\left(c\right)$. (As saulius points out, it’s unclear whether meat production is net positive or net negative for animals as a whole. Also, animal welfare regulations and alternative protein technologies are more common in high-income regions like the EU and US, so this assumption may not apply at the high end.) If this is true, then increasing a person or country’s income is most valuable when that person/​country is in extreme poverty, and least valuable at the high end of the income spectrum.

  The upshot: the framing of the meat eater problem as being about poverty obscures the fact that the worst offenders of factory farming are rich countries like the United States, not poor ones, and that increasing the income of a rich person is worse for animal welfare than increasing that of a poor one (as long as both of them are non-vegan). I feel like it’s hypocritical for animal advocates and EAs from rich countries to blame poor countries for the suffering caused by factory farming.

• BrownHairedEevee 2 Apr 2024 22:40 UTC

  8 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: What are your Qs for Leif We­nar?

  In your article, you write:

  If we decide to intervene in poor people’s lives, we should do so responsibly—ideally by shifting our power to them and being accountable for our actions.

  Echoing other users’ comments, what do you think about EA global health and development (GHD) orgs’ attempts to empower beneficiaries of aid? I think that empowerment has come up in the EA context in two ways:

  • Letting beneficiaries make their own decisions: GiveDirectly is a longstanding charity recommendation in the GHD space, and it empowers people by giving them cash and the freedom to spend it however they see fit.

  • Using beneficiaries’ moral preferences to guide donors’ decisions: IDinsight has published a series of research papers (in 2018 and 2021) that ask potential GD beneficiaries about their preferences between saving lives and having more money, and the beneficiaries say they care about saving lives more. Based on this, GiveWell and Open Phil have prioritized healthcare interventions over GD-style cash transfer programs.

New Busi­ness Wars pod­cast sea­son on Sam Alt­man and OpenAI

• BrownHairedEevee 2 Apr 2024 5:24 UTC

  6 points

  4 ∶ 0

  in reply to: yanni kyriacos’s comment on: Yanni Kyr­i­a­cos’s Shortform

  How about making the April Fool’s Day tag visible on the forum frontpage, like so?

  

• BrownHairedEevee 1 Apr 2024 18:56 UTC

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: The Cen­tre for Effec­tive Altru­ism is spin­ning out of the Cen­tre for Effec­tive Altruism

  Sounds like a good move—although I’m skeptical that CEA will achieve the escape velocity necessary to spin out of CEA’s center of gravity. Shoot your shot!

• BrownHairedEevee 1 Apr 2024 7:06 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jason’s comment on: Ja­son’s Shortform

  Why did SBF only get 25 years when the prosecution called for 40-50 (and the sentencing guidelines call for 110)?

• BrownHairedEevee 22 Mar 2024 17:41 UTC

  4 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: eve­lyn­ciara’s Shortform

  April Fools’ Day is in 11 days! Get yer jokes ready 🎶

• BrownHairedEevee 18 Mar 2024 6:36 UTC

  9 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: What posts would you like some­one to write?

  A post about the current status of the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) and a post-mortem if it has shut down. Some users including me have speculated that FHI is dead, but an official confirmation of the org’s status would count as a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes.

• BrownHairedEevee 18 Mar 2024 6:32 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: barkbellowroar’s comment on: bark­bel­lowroar’s Quick takes

  Further evidence: The 80,000 Hours website footer no longer mentions FHI. Until February 2023, the footer contained the following statement:

  We’re affiliated with the Future of Humanity Institute and the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford.

  

  By February 21, that statement was replaced with a paragraph simply stating that 80k is part of EV. The references to GPI, CEA and GWWC were also removed:

  

• BrownHairedEevee 2 Mar 2024 4:32 UTC

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: barkbellowroar’s comment on: bark­bel­lowroar’s Quick takes

  Yeah, it looks like the FHI website’s news section hasn’t been updated since 2021. Nor are there any publications since 2021.

• BrownHairedEevee 24 Feb 2024 19:42 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: MarcKrüger’s comment on: The Case for An­i­mal-In­clu­sive Longtermism

  Hi, no, I’m not the author of the paper. I edited the top of the linkpost to indicate that.

• BrownHairedEevee 24 Feb 2024 19:38 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Toby_Ord’s comment on: The Case for An­i­mal-In­clu­sive Longtermism

  I didn’t write the paper, but thank you for the comment, Prof. Ord! I appreciate your perspective.

  I also personally am not sold on the biosphere having negative overall value. I think the immense number of sentient beings that spend large portions of their lives suffering makes it a real possibility, but I am not 100% sure that utilitarianism is true when it comes to balancing wild animal welfare and broader ecological health. I think that humanity needs to spend more effort figuring out what is ultimately of value, and because the ecological view has been dominant in environmental ethics to date, I believe the WAW view deserves more consideration and to be integrated into humanity’s thought process even if it is not ultimately accepted.

• BrownHairedEevee 18 Feb 2024 22:44 UTC

  10 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: eve­lyn­ciara’s Shortform

  Okay, so one thing I don’t get about “common sense ethics” discourse in EA is, which common sense ethical norms prevail? Different people even in the same society have different attitudes about what’s common sense.

  For example, pretty much everyone agrees that theft and fraud in the service of a good cause—as in the FTX case—is immoral. But what about cases where the governing norms are ambiguous or changing? For example, in the United States, it’s considered customary to tip at restaurants and for deliveries, but there isn’t much consensus on when and how much to tip, especially with digital point-of-sale systems encouraging people to tip in more situations. (Just as an example of how conceptions of “common sense ethics” can differ: I just learned that apparently, you’re supposed to tip the courier before you get a delivery now, otherwise they might refuse to take your order at all. I’ve grown up believing that you’re supposed to tip after you get service, but many drivers expect you to tip beforehand.) You’re never required to tip as a condition of service, so what if you just never tipped and always donated the equivalent amount to highly effective charities instead? That sounds unethical to me but technically it’s legal and not a breach of contract.

  Going further, what if you started a company, like a food delivery app, that hired contractors to do the important work and paid them subminimum wages^[1], forcing them to rely on users’ generosity (i.e. tips) to make a living? And then made a 40% profit margin and donated the profits to GiveWell? That also sounds unethical—you’re taking with one hand and giving with the other. But in a capitalist society like the U.S., it’s just business as usual.

  1. ^

     Under federal law and in most U.S. states, employers can pay tipped workers less than the minimum wage as long as their wages and tips add up to at least the minimum wage. However, many employers get away with not ensuring that tipped workers earn the minimum wage, or outright stealing tips.

The Case for An­i­mal-In­clu­sive Longtermism