jasonk

Karma: 219

jasonk 8 Apr 2025 20:14 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 0
on: AI Moral Alignment: The Most Important Goal of Our Generation
This is a worthwhile idea, and I very much hope for it to be successful.
As I think about the idea, I wonder about the risk of backlash. I noticed your comment about how AI models have incorporated many values of the SF-area. Remember when there was a backlash against “woke” models (e.g., https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68412620 )?

It makes me wonder how we can get to a sentient-centric AI that doesn’t create backlash by producing analogous results that the typical person would find outlandish, but which an anti-speciesist vegan wouldn’t. Do social and AI changes have to happen in lockstep? Or at least without one getting too far ahead of the other? I’m unsure.

jasonk 13 Jan 2023 16:46 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Part 4/4: Under-explored Abolitionist Approaches
Thank you for sharing so many thoughts. I encourage you to push further, and I’m intersted in talking or collaborating as well. I have been involved in different types of direct advocacy in the past and have been most active in recent years as a donor—primarily to groups I believe may move animal product alternatives forward and which are being overlooked by other donors.
One thing I’ve been curious about is whether doing explicit moral education is useful and in what mode. Animal Ethics is the group that comes to mind that seems to be doing the most of this, and most closely aligned with abolitionism. I mean, they seem to be delivering moral arguments at various levels—from academic to the street—and in different modes. My assumption is that helping to spread simply put, common sense arguments for animal rights will an important and necessary part of moving to abolition.

jasonk 13 Jan 2023 16:33 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Part 3/4: Scrutinising Objections to (Traditional) Abolitionist Approaches
“My contributions in this section are to point out that as morally driven (and charity funded) advocates, our comparative advantage is to emphasise the moral arguments, and this could be more effective anyway.”
I think this is spot-on, and I agree that moral advocacy is very much neglected.

jasonk 29 Dec 2022 19:14 UTC
2 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: New EA cause area: chewier food for children
My suggestion would be to have no process other than general social sanctions. I don’t think it makes sense to make any person or entity an authority over “effective altruism” any more than it would make sense to name a particular person or entity an authority over the appropriate use of “Christian” or “utilitarian”.
I believe you’re introducing a new kind of connection when you talk about usage of the heart-in-lightbulb image. I couldn’t tell you who originally produced that image, but I assume it was connected to CEA. I agree that using an image with strong associations with a particular organization that created it might morally require someone to check in with the organization even if the image wasn’t copyrighted.
I believe effective altruism benefits strongly from the push and pull of different thinkers and organizations as they debate its meaning and what’s effective. Some stuff people do will seem obviously incongruous with the concept and in such cases it makes sense for people to express social disapproval (as has been done in the past).

jasonk 26 Dec 2022 20:24 UTC
6 points
6 ∶ 0
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: New EA cause area: chewier food for children
Even if you think you have a good reason to use EA in your marketing, you should still get CEA’s permission first.
I strongly disagree with the idea that CEA (or any person or entity) should have that kind of ownership over “effective altruism”. It’s not a brand, but a concept whose boundaries are negotiated by a wide variety of actors.

jasonk 6 Dec 2022 16:40 UTC
4 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Noa Weiss’s comment on: Alternative Proteins + Machine Learning: Project Proposals, Seeking Funding
“I lead the Israeli community of Women in Data Science” and videos in Hebrew. :-)

jasonk 6 Dec 2022 15:35 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Alternative Proteins + Machine Learning: Project Proposals, Seeking Funding
I’m not sure if you live in Israel—just seeing signs suggesting it on your website—but have you contacted The Modern Agriculture Foundation (https://www.modern-agriculture.org/)? I know they’re in touch with many companies locally and may have ideas about funding locally as well.

jasonk 6 Oct 2022 18:26 UTC
6 points
3 ∶ 0
in reply to: Holly K’s comment on: Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101”
If there were cost-efficient leverage points, it might be worth investing some amount of money and effort in.
A non-exhaustive list of semi-conjoint reasons:
- One believes abortion is a grave moral wrong and a lot occur each year.
- One doesn’t believe abortion is a grave moral wrong, but assigns some weight to the view’s correctness. Even assigning a 10% chance to the view’s correctness still means a lot is potentially at stake.
- There might be relatively easy ways to make a difference and have other positive, follow-on effects. For example, male contraceptives might make a big difference in reducing unintended pregnancies and my understanding (a few years old) is that there aren’t many funders of relevant research. (I recognize that some people argue that the follow-on effects of other contraceptives like the pill are not fully positive and some believe they may even be negative.)
- Abortion is ridiculously polarizing and seems to crowd out discussion of other important issues in politics. Maybe reducing its salience would help increase the ability to focus on other issues?
- Obtaining an abortion imposes greater and greater costs in the US (financially, in time required, psychologically, health risks) as restrictions are rolled out.
- The strategies engaged in by many pro-life advocates seem unlikely to significantly reduce abortion rates.

jasonk 5 Oct 2022 14:16 UTC
7 points
1 ∶ 2
on: Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101”
Has anyone associated with EA ever looked for leverage points for reducing the rate of abortion?
(I believe the answer is no, or at least it hasn’t been published publicly.)

jasonk 20 Sep 2022 17:37 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Max_Carpendale’s comment on: Pathways to victory: How can we end animal agriculture?
> Another possibility is that the industry is simply run into the ground through costly welfare reforms and competition through alternatives. Maybe this wouldn’t remove all animal exploitation, and some animal products would still be demanded as a luxury good, but it would seem pretty significant if the reform path way could bring us that far, would you agree?
I agree that would be significant. I suppose I remain skeptical that costly welfare reforms are realistic and will go very far.
Thanks for explaining your points further. I appreciate the exchange!

jasonk 15 Sep 2022 14:29 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Max_Carpendale’s comment on: Pathways to victory: How can we end animal agriculture?
Thank you for encouraging me to go back and re-read. I had missed several of your points when skimming yesterday.

I recall Erik Marcus making the case for what I believe he called “dismantlement theory” in his book “Meat Market” (2005). He essentially says that animal protectionists should engage in welfare campaigns that incrementally make animal use more expensive until it’s discontinued.
To restate your description of the reform pathway, I believe you’re saying that welfare campaigning could continue up to a point and then transition to asking for outright bans or rights recognition.
The abolitionist will argue that that the transition is not morally implied by animal protectionism. But I think you’d say that it is, provided that the continued animal use still involves a “significant amount of suffering”? I guess the thought is that there’s a point where further welfare improvement (via cage size, enrichment, etc.) is no longer possible and that at this point animal protectionism will advocate for non-use, rather than continuing to advocate for further welfare improvements? I’m curious if there’s any precedent for this. Assuming not, I’m curious what a concrete example of a transition would look like—what do we imagine the pathway actually looking like for egg laying hens for example.

Further the abolitionist will argue that animal protectionism is not practically conducive to the transition. So long as animal protectionism has reinforced the practice of animal use (morally, legally, institutionally), the paradigm of sufficiently humane animal use will persist. Animal protectionism will have to become something entirely other than the animal protectionism as it exists today to make the transition. In terms of precedent for this, I’m thinking of anti-abortionists who had advocated for incremental changes to abortion practices (waiting periods, different practices, clinic requirements) switching to advocacy for bans. While in such a case, at least some activists seem capable of the transition, it’s less clear that a recognizable segment of the public is willing to follow suit (looking at polling).

This leaves me less optimistic about the reform/ask strategy and much more optimistic about a strategy which involves technological changes (i.e., substituting animal use) and moral persuasion around non-use to reinforce the switch.

jasonk 14 Sep 2022 19:47 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Pathways to victory: How can we end animal agriculture?
In terms of pathways to ending animal use, I believe the strongest abolitionist argument against animal protectionism is that welfare campaigning doesn’t in theory or practice seem to lead to non-use. Rather, at best, welfare campaigning leads to use that involves less suffering per animal, while potentially having negative, unintended impacts (the kind pointed at by Francione). I don’t believe the article addresses this argument.

I applaud the discussion of this important topic.

jasonk 8 Aug 2022 14:40 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Charlie Dougherty’s comment on: Peacebuilding and Violent Conflict
I corresponded with the author while he wrote it. He’s a very interesting, kind, funny, and motivated person.

jasonk 6 Aug 2022 2:25 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Peacebuilding and Violent Conflict
Maybe interesting to you: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/r2Sw6fFYNy8PPRiAH/evaluating-communal-violence-from-an-effective-altruist

jasonk 21 Mar 2022 18:48 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: EA Obligations versus Financial Security
If you don’t feel financially secure, it’s likely going to affect your productivity a lot. Financial issues affect one’s mental health, relationships, children, etc.
In my own experience, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of financial security much more than when I was young, in particular to being able to make a sustainable impact and a bigger impact in the future.

jasonk 8 Feb 2022 14:44 UTC
18 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The Case for Rare Chinese Tofus
Hi George,
These are interesting ideas generated from your first-hand experience.
Have you already tried contacting The Good Food Institute (https://gfi.org/contact/)? They have a lot of resources and advice to offer entrepreneurs in the alternative protein space.

jasonk 7 Feb 2022 20:24 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The Liberation Pledge
Does The Pledge include not eating or “having drinks” at non-vegan establishments?
I’m interested, because I’m wondering if The Pledge is concerned with (a) normalizing patronage of non-vegan restaurants and/or (b) paying money to restaurants whose business model is premised on the exploitation of animals.

jasonk 5 Dec 2021 18:49 UTC
9 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Might stopping miscarriages be a very important cause area?
I think what you’re saying is basically right, and it’s an important topic to discuss further.
This is more of a technical point, but I don’t you need to worry about whether a miscarriage or abortion kills a human. Rather, you the relevant question is whether the being killed matters. (My own intuition isn’t very strong that beings very early in development matter morally a lot, but I recognize that many people have the opposite intuition and I’m a bit moved by arguments based on potential (like from Don Marquis), and I’m willing to assign a probability to their views being right given this.)
This post by Michael Huemer has some interesting and relevant numerical comparisons that include abortion and miscarriage. https://fakenous.net/?p=225

From time to time, I think about exploring this topic in greater depth, trying to understand the potential effects of different interventions (e.g., potential for new forms of birth control to reduce number of unintended fertilizations, potential for different kinds of interventions—like better economic support—to reduce the frequency of the choice of abortion, and I’m not sure what for miscarriage but you list some good ideas worth exploring), but I haven’t ever gotten further than adding to a notes file. If you or someone else reading this is interested in exploring this area further, I’d be interested in collaborating. The collaboration would help me find motivation.
Thanks for your post!

jasonk 25 Nov 2021 17:52 UTC
13 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What Small Weird Thing Do You Fund?
I don’t think it counts as weird, but we’ve donated to and plan to continue donating to Agriculture Cellulaire France (https://agriculturecellulaire.fr/) and The Modern Agriculture Foundation (https://www.modern-agriculture.org/).

These are both relatively small organizations in the cell ag space that I think are doing interesting things and have a lot of potential. I think they’re getting overlooked by other donors.

jasonk 17 May 2020 17:19 UTC
52 points
0 ∶ 0
on: How should longtermists think about eating meat?
I worry that longtermism can be used to justify, or rationalize (depending on your view), too much. Imagine turning back the clock to when many of the things we consider morally wrong and abhorrent were more commonplace and were widely accepted: sexual harassment, marital rape, human slavery, etc., and sticking one’s neck out in opposition to any of them would at least cost some social capital if not more.
Does the longtermist in any of these contexts really not have any obligation to engage in any costly opposition to the wrongs because it would detract from their longtermist projects? It seems it would require an awful lot of confidence in the longtermist’s ability to affect the future to argue so. And it feels terribly convenient for the longtermist to argue they are in the moral right while making no effort to counteract or at least not participate in what they recognize as moral wrongs.
My view can be boiled down to this: First, we should be wary of arguments that tell us that doing things that we believe to be wrong are fine to do. Second, we should think hard about how much certainty we have about our ability to have longterm effects.