Jacob | MSc Economics student
Primarily interested in AI Governance at the moment.
Jacob
Karma: 90
Introduction to Effective Altruism
Restaurant Social at Cuno B
Intro Event +Socialising
Restaurant Social at Cuno B
Restaurant Social at Cuno B
We agree that the Torres piece is annoying and, to some extent irresponsible and unfair. And it’s certainly true that there are more sober, thoughtful, penetrating criticisms of specific aspects of longtermism.
Our reasons for including the piece anyway are: (1) It’s probably the single most well-known attack on longtermism, and it’s helpful to know what kinds of objections have made it out into the world and gotten traction outside the EA bubble. (2) It bundles together many criticisms in one place, so we don’t have to read four or five different essays. (3) We think it’s healthy to hear outside-view criticisms that don’t shy away from denouncing the whole longtermist program. (4) Although Torres focuses too much on (particular interpretations of) Bostrom as a stand-in for longtermism generally, some of his worries about Bostromism do a good job raising tricky and essential questions.
We wish there were a piece that did a similar amount of useful things without so many flaws, but we don’t know of any!
That said, we think Scott Alexander’s recent piece on longtermism is pretty good, and maybe we should read that too.
This depends also on your demand. You can apply now, and it’s OK if you can’t come because the discussion time is terrible for you. After looking at the timetable, I think doing it afternoons is the best option at the moment. Sadly, then it’s pretty late in the Philippines :(also depends
I think it’s worth applying if you have some interest in philosophy and we expect to accept most applicants. You can also look at EA Virtual Programs https://www.effectivealtruism.org/virtual-programs , but I hope I have convinced you to apply :-)
Announcing the Longtermism Fellowship of EA Munich—Apply!
I was not very aware about this topic until recently when somebody wanted to discuss outreach towards non-academics with me. We are in contact with an adult education center (Volkshochschule) and might offer an Intro Fellowship there. It might be worth considering starting an EA group for high school graduates (no college) , comparable to EA for Christians, but I haven’t thought much about it and this should be founded by people without tertiary education (chicken egg problem).
Thanks for writing this! Great to see this written out finally.