imp4rtial 🔸

Karma: 1,833

imp4rtial 🔸Aug 9, 2021, 1:28 PM
3 points
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in reply to: Alex HT’s comment on: [PR FAQ] Sharing readership data with Forum authors
Agreed, I’d love this feature! I also frequently rely on pageview statistics to prioritize which Wikipedia articles to improve.

imp4rtial 🔸Aug 8, 2021, 6:51 PM
15 points
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in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: Towards a Weaker Longtermism
There is a big difference between (i) the very plausible claim that the value of the long-term (in terms of lives, experiences, etc.) is astronomically larger than the value of the near-term, and (ii) the rather implausible claim that interventions targeted at improving the long-term are astronomically more important/cost-effective than those targeted at improving the near-term. It seems to me that many longtermists believe (i) but that almost no-one believes (ii).

Basically, in this context the same points apply that Brian Tomasik made in his essay “Why Charities Usually Don’t Differ Astronomically in Expected Cost-Effectiveness” (https://reducing-suffering.org/why-charities-dont-differ-astronomically-in-cost-effectiveness/)

imp4rtial 🔸Aug 1, 2021, 5:00 PM
10 points
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on: Writing about my job: Research Fellow, FHI
I really appreciated the many useful links you included in this post and would like to encourage others to strive to do the same when writing EA Forum articles.

imp4rtial 🔸Jul 28, 2021, 8:58 AM
1 point
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on: How to reach out to orgs en masse?
Happy to have you here, Linda! It sounds like you have some really important skills to offer and I wish you will find great opportunities to apply them.

imp4rtial 🔸Jul 27, 2021, 12:26 PM
9 points
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on: AMA: The new Open Philanthropy Technology Policy Fellowship
The listed application documents include a “Short essay (≤500 words)” without further details. Can you say more about what this entails and what you are looking for?

imp4rtial 🔸Jul 27, 2021, 12:23 PM
5 points
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on: AMA: The new Open Philanthropy Technology Policy Fellowship
Are non-US citizens who hold a US work authorization disadvantaged in the application process even if they seek to enter a US policy career (and perhaps aim to become naturalized eventually)?

imp4rtial 🔸Jul 25, 2021, 9:38 AM
21 points
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on: Are there fictional books (novels, poetry, comics) on an EA?
There is Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter fan fiction “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” (HPMOR), which conveys many ideas and concepts that are relevant to EA: http://www.hpmor.com/

Please note that there is also a fan-produced audio version of HPMOR: https://hpmorpodcast.com/

imp4rtial 🔸Jul 5, 2021, 10:21 AM
3 points
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on: The EA Forum Podcast is up and running
Great initiative! Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find the podcast on either of my two podcast apps (BeyondPod and Podcast Addict). Do you plan to make the podcast available across all major platforms?

imp4rtial 🔸Jul 5, 2021, 10:16 AM
16 points
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on: You are allowed to edit Wikipedia
Strongly agree! I’m currently writing an EA Forum post making the case for Wikipedia editing.

imp4rtial 🔸Jul 4, 2021, 7:11 AM
2 points
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on: The most successful EA podcast of all time: Sam Harris and Will MacAskill (2020)
Awesome episode! I really enjoyed listening to it when it came out and was excited for Sam’s large audiences across Waking Up and Making Sense to learn about EA in this way.

imp4rtial 🔸Jun 19, 2021, 10:53 AM
5 points
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in reply to: QNaghma’s comment on: Open Thread: June 2021
Welcome Naghma! It is great to have you here and learn about your background and interests.

imp4rtial 🔸Jun 18, 2021, 12:20 PM
24 points
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on: Know anyone interested in litigation?
Hi Alene! I suspect you already know Jay Shooster (https://www.richmanlawpolicy.com/team/jay-shooster)? In case you don’t, he might be a great contact for you.

imp4rtial 🔸Jun 15, 2021, 6:46 PM
3 points
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in reply to: Pablo’s comment on: New? Start here! (Useful links)
Mine too!

imp4rtial 🔸Jun 14, 2021, 4:21 PM
5 points
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on: What are some high-impact paths for a young person in the developing world?
Here is an old, informal 80,000 Hours document on this topic: https://wiki.80000hours.org/index.php/Potentially_promising_career_paths_in_poorer_countries

imp4rtial 🔸Jun 3, 2021, 7:33 AM
10 points
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on: Help me find the crux between EA/XR and Progress Studies
Regarding your question:
What would moral/social progress actually look like?
This is a big and difficult question, but here are some pointers to relevant concepts and resources:
- Moral circle expansion (MCE) - MCE is “the attempt to expand the perceived boundaries of the category of moral patients.” For instance, this could involve increasing the moral concern in the wider public (or, more targeted, among societal decision-makers) for non-human animals or future people. Arguably, MCE could help reduce the risk of societies committing further atrocities like factory farming and also increase the resources spent on existential risk mitigation (as there is a greater concern for the welfare of future people).
- Improving institutional decision-making—this covers a very broad range of interventions, including, for instance, voting reform. The case for it is that “Improving the quality of decision-making in important institutions could improve our ability to solve almost all other problems. It could also help society’s ability to identify “unknown unknowns” – problems we haven’t even thought of yet – and to mitigate all global catastrophic risks”.
- See also this list of resources on differential progress (and in particular, Differential Intellectual Progress as a Positive-Sum Project)
- Global priorities research (GPR) - arguably, a key priority for GPR is to provide answers to the above question. For instance, this might involve rigorously investigating the plausibility of longtermism in the light of objections (such as the epistemic objection).
- The Possibility of an Ongoing Moral Catastrophe—a very interesting paper arguing “for believing that our society is unknowingly guilty of serious, large-scale wrongdoing.”. The paper ends by making two suggestions relevant to the above question: “The article then discusses what our society should do in light of the likelihood that we are doing something seriously wrong: we should regard intellectual progress, of the sort that will allow us to find and correct our moral mistakes as soon as possible, as an urgent moral priority rather than as a mere luxury; and we should also consider it important to save resources and cultivate flexibility, so that when the time comes to change our policies we will be able to do so quickly and smoothly.”

imp4rtial 🔸Jun 3, 2021, 7:06 AM
16 points
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on: Help me find the crux between EA/XR and Progress Studies
Regarding your question:
Does XR consider tech progress default-good or default-bad?
Leopold Aschenbrenner’s paper Existential risk and growth provides one interesting perspective on this question (note that while I find the paper informative, I don’t think it settles the question).
A key question the paper seeks to address is this:
Does faster economic growth accelerate the development of dangerous newtechnologies, thereby increasing the probability of an existential catastrophe?
The paper’s (preliminary) conclusion is
we could be living in a unique “time of perils,” having developed technologies advanced enough to threaten our permanent destruction, but not having grown wealthy enough yet to be willing to spend sufficiently on safety. Accelerating growth during this “time of perils” initially increases risk, but improves the chances of humanity’s survival in the long run. Conversely, even short-term stagnation could substantially curtail the future of humanity.

imp4rtial 🔸May 24, 2021, 6:59 AM
12 points
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on: AMA: Working at the Centre for Effective Altruism
My impression is that as an organisation CEA has undergone substantial change over time. How might working at CEA today be different compared to working there, say, 3/5/7 years ago?

imp4rtial 🔸May 24, 2021, 6:56 AM
7 points
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on: AMA: Working at the Centre for Effective Altruism
Do you believe the EA community’s overall level of investment in community building is adequate/too low/too high?

(While this question isn’t strictly about CEA itself, I’d imagine a key motivating belief for many CEA staff members would be that community building work is neglected relative to other high impact opportunities.)

imp4rtial 🔸May 24, 2021, 6:53 AM
6 points
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on: AMA: Working at the Centre for Effective Altruism
What are the most positive and/or negative aspects of your work at CEA?

imp4rtial 🔸May 20, 2021, 8:56 PM
25 points
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on: How much do you (actually) work?
This is an interesting question, though I am somewhat concerned that the responses will be biased towards high numbers because people who work relatively fewer hours may be less likely to respond. I would give much more weight to an anonymous survey.

On a different note, I have personally found it useful to track my working hours using Toggl Track (https://toggl.com/track/). This has given me a much more accurate sense of how many hours I usually work per week and how long I should expect projects to take.