fergusb1232

Karma: 22

fergusb1232 29 May 2018 22:02 UTC
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on: Open Thread #39
Hi everyone.

I’ve been thinking about the potential effectiveness of lobbying for legalisation of psychedelics (whether individually or as part of a total legalisation of drugs) or the effectiveness of encouraging their use, legal or not, in terms of increasing the empathy of a population (and therefore their likelihood of becoming EAs).

Given their reputation for making people more open to new ideas, psychedelics could significantly bolster the number of people who agree with and act on EA principles.

Does anyone know of any research into anything related / any good articles on this?

fergusb1232 30 May 2018 0:28 UTC
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in reply to: amirography’s comment on: Open Thread #39
You could save it, if you believe that a) a time will come fairly soon when you can move the money easier or you will leave Iran and be able to take the money and b) the money won’t significantly depreciate in value during this time.

If I was you I would set up a small donation ($1 maybe) to the best charity you can find in Iran, or one that makes you feel good to donate to, to try and establish a habit of giving, while investing the rest of the money in yourself (decreasing the amount of time you have to work (if you work) so you can read more, getting a gym membership to maximise your health and therefore your working life and donatable earnings, etc).

fergusb1232 8 Nov 2019 12:25 UTC
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Overview of Capitalism and Socialism for Effective Altruism
Thanks for an enjoyable article, but I think
′ Finally, I think if the embargo were really so severe as to be mainly responsible for Cuba’s problems, Cuba would do more to try to undo it. I don’t know the details of the diplomacy here and of course there limits to how well Cuba can reform without risking a coup or revolution, but it still seems like there are small ways they could have tried to improve relations with the US—token liberalization, apologize for shooting down planes in 1996, offer compensation for frozen/confiscated US property, or other things. If there really were so many billions of dollars at stake then I would think they’d have taken some earlier, bigger steps forward. Low confidence on this.′

Betrays a major misunderstanding of the ideological forces at play here. Castro and the Cuban government have, understandably, felt as if the US would do anything to knock it back into being a capitalist, investor friendly state like it was under Batista (Bay of Pigs, Operation Northwoods,the 1976 plane bombing etc). To back down would be to open the floodgates to further US attempts like these. A refusal to kowtow to the US given their record does not in any way indicate that the embargo is not severe

fergusb1232 4 Oct 2023 21:54 UTC
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in reply to: Jessica Wen’s comment on: UK—charity shops
Yeah that’s my motivation mainly—to reduce harm of new stuff, but given prices are broadly similar it seems worth buying from them (if convenient and the charity has some benefit in expectation) rather than other people on gumtree / ebay etc
It seems likely to me that Oxfam would be quite a bit more effective than a shop supporting local community work

fergusb1232 21 Nov 2023 21:02 UTC
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in reply to: Aaron Bergman’s comment on: Stuff I buy and use: a listicle to boost your consumer surplus and productivity
I’ve recently found this product which provides B12 and iodine (important for vegans, iodine extremely underknown for UK vegans as our public health iodisation is via milk, unlike salt /wheat in other countries), d3, b2+6, folate and selenium. No A or E. Taste pretty bad at first but get used to it after 2 weeks

https://www.vegansociety.com/shop/supplements/veg-1-orange-180-tablets

fergusb1232 6 Jan 2024 18:03 UTC
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in reply to: Yellow (Daryl)’s comment on: Stuff I buy and use: a listicle to boost your consumer surplus and productivity
I’d be pretty sceptical of nutrition facts—Dr Greger is seriously biased and relies on very weak evidence for many of his claims.
That said, this paper showed increased TMAO from supplemental choline (but not eggs) though I can’t get the full thing to see if the increase was of any clinical relevance:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002934321002291