Woman // Christian // Canadian // Londoner // Married // Donates to Global Development // Works on Energy Policy
Khorton
Karma: 5,517
Counterfactual impact when your coworkers share your values
Update: I’ve reviewed my profile and deleted anything I’m not comfortable sharing with a wider audience. The question about “how I can help other people at the conference” was the biggest update I think.
What level of screening are you doing for virtual attendees? I’m trying to remember what I included on my virtual profile—suddenly hearing that access to my virtual profile which I thought was going to be exclusively shared with about 200 highly engaged EAs is now something you’re advertising as a selling point to a larger audience was a bit of a shock.
Have only done a first skim but this looks so useful Sam!
People use them for a couple of years and generally speak highly of them.
Another option that’s common in the Civil Service is a group of 6 peers with similar jobs. Each month, two people bring a challenge they’re facing to the group for discussion. Their peers ask questions, give advice, and share their own perspectives. This works especially well if you want industry-specific advice and you can start a group with other people in your same industry.
Thanks Ruby!
Hey Iris, I think it’s wonderful that you want to help protect natural habitats. I don’t know of any charities like the ones you’re describing offhand, but when I’m looking at new charities I try to figure out:
-What does the charity actually do day to day? What will my money be buying? (i.e. research staff time, new equipment)
-How much equipment, staff time, etc can I get for each $1000 I spend?
-What do I think that money will achieve? For example, how many acres of the Amazon could my donation protect, and for how long? (This is the hardest part but I try to give my best guess)
Good luck with your search and please let us know what you find! :)
As an update, I’ve decided not to push the button this year.
However I tentatively believe that this event in its current form is net negative for community health. I also see that a lot of the issues were predictable from last year’s comments but were not addressed.
For that reason, if next year’s event hasn’t been changed enough to be positive for community health (ie clear purpose, shared understanding around social pressure, opt-in if it could have any impact on people’s friendships) I am pre-committing to pressing the button. If I’m not invited I’ll encourage someone else to press it.
If you make it opt-in, please do feel free to invite me—really! There are a lot of versions of this that I think I’d enjoy and I promise I’m not an entirely uncooperative person
Yes, I agree
I imagined you would get people to volunteer in advance of Petrov Day and then choose who you trust from the list of volunteers (or trust all of them to collaborate, dealer’s choice)
But I really love the idea of people saying “I care about preserving humanity, I’m committed to the values of prudence and rationality, and I want to take part in observing this holiday”. I would love to see that group of people in action.
That’s genuinely fine with me, I hope all the people who decide to embrace this shared ritual find it meaningful and fulfilling :)
Edit: Also then I would have 3 options, opting out, opting in and cooperating or opting in and defecting, which was exactly my point? Here the only way to signal that I’m not interested is by blowing up LessWrong.
:O
Ah yes. I don’t consider ignoring the email to be opting out. As soon as I’ve read the email, inaction is one of my two options. If I delete the email, there will be a post that says something like, “We won! Everyone we emailed decided to cooperate!” even though I didn’t choose to cooperate, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be involved in the first place.
Yes, looking at the aftermath of last year is pretty grim. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K7jrkyKArvxJ224GD/on-destroying-the-world
Clarifying the Petrov Day Exercise
It could be seen as uncooperative or pushing things too far, like “for what value of donations should an Effective Altruist let me punch them?”
If it’s not permissable for me to shut down the site, why is it permissible for Aaron to send unsolicited emails to 100 people inviting them to shut it down?
I know we’re trying to remember when the US and USSR had their weapons pointed at each other but it feels more like the North and South islands of New Zealand are trying to decide whether to nuke each other!
Edit: Not even something so violent—just temporarily inconvenience each other
Oh okay! That makes a lot of sense and I’m much more comfortable with that. Thanks for clearing it up.