Lizka

Smal­lpox eradication

An­nounc­ing: Au­dio nar­ra­tions of EA Fo­rum posts

De­cem­ber 16 (and 17-18) will be Draft Amnesty Days

• Lizka 2 Dec 2022 12:05 UTC

  9 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: An­i­mal Ad­vo­cacy Digest #2 (Nov 18th—Dec 2nd)

  I really appreciate the summaries, thank you!

• Lizka 2 Dec 2022 12:02 UTC

  16 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: ChristianKleineidam’s comment on: I’m a 22-year-old woman in­volved in Effec­tive Altru­ism. I’m sad, dis­ap­pointed, and scared.

  You can actually see a description of what happened on CEA’s Mistakes page.

Why do you give (or pur­sue work in effec­tive al­tru­ism)? (Open thread)

• Lizka 29 Nov 2022 14:48 UTC

  32 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Why Neu­ron Counts Shouldn’t Be Used as Prox­ies for Mo­ral Weight

  I’m really grateful for this post and the resulting discussion (and I’m curating the post). I’ve uncritically used neuron counts as a proxy in informal discussions (more than once), and have seen them used in this way a lot more.

  It helped me to draw out a diagram as I was reading this post (would appreciate corrections! although I probably won’t spend time trying to make the diagram nicer or cleaner). My understanding is that the post sketched out the rough case for neuron counts as a proxy for moral weight as predictors of the grey properties below (information-processing capacity, intelligence, extent of valenced consciousness, and the number of morally relevant thresholds crossed by the organism), and then disputed the (predictive power of the) arrows I’ve greyed out and written on.

  

• Lizka 29 Nov 2022 14:01 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Effec­tive giving

  No, although they can’t join without logging in.

• Lizka 28 Nov 2022 20:44 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: bruce’s comment on: Effec­tive giving

  I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ll chime in:

  • Here’s the Forum wiki page on donation matching, which collects lots of related posts.

  • Presumably the best case for a donation match is a match such that:

    • The “matcher” would not use the funds altruistically if they don’t spend them on the match (see also What should “counterfactual donation” mean?)

    • The match’s limit won’t run out (at least, without your involvement), or others would use the match less effectively (e.g. if there’s $100 in matching funds going to any charity, and you think others might direct the funds to PlayPumps)

    • Where the donations are not restricted to a particular project that’s less than half as effective as where you’d be donating otherwise (e.g. you were going to donate $100 in total, and you’d go for GiveWell by default, and someone says they’ll match you for $100 if you give your $100 to PlayPumps — you should probably not do this).

    • [There are probably other criteria that I’m not thinking about right now!]

• Lizka 28 Nov 2022 20:12 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Pro­posed: dona­tion mechanism for peo­ple do­ing di­rect work (USA tax rele­vant)

  Thanks for posting this!

  At a skim, this looks related to Passing Up Pay by Jeff Kaufman, and Should effective altruism have a norm against donating to employers? by Owen Cotton-Barratt. I don’t remember what was in those posts, exactly, but imagine that readers who find this interesting might also find the discussion on those posts useful.

• Lizka 28 Nov 2022 13:53 UTC

  7 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Create a fundraiser with GWWC!

  This seems really cool — thanks for setting it up!

Effec­tive giv­ing sub­fo­rum and other up­dates (bonus Fo­rum up­date Novem­ber 2022)

• Lizka 24 Nov 2022 22:55 UTC

  11 points

  7 ∶ 5

  in reply to: Lizka’s comment on: A Let­ter to the Bul­letin of Atomic Scientists

  We’re issuing Sabs a 1-month ban for breaking the norms repeatedly in the comment above, despite our warning 10 days ago. Specifically, we think that Sabs violated the following norms:

  • The comment above is unnecessarily insulting and harsh.

  • It was not helpful for good discourse. I don’t believe that speculating about mental illness in this way is appropriate unless there’s a good and stated reason for it.

  • The comment deadnamed and misgendered Torres, and was not corrected after I pointed this out.^[1]

  On the point brought up by some Forum users, that the comment is informative: extremely critical content — including fairly vague negative impressions of someone — can be very useful to surface. But I think it’s very important for us to uphold the Forum’s norms about kindness, civility, staying on topic, and honesty, especially when the typical reader might be predisposed to suspending them because of past experiences with someone involved.

  There was some discussion about this two years ago (again relating to Torres). Some relevant excerpts from Aaron’s comments from this thread:

  One complication in this situation is that [Torres] doesn’t have a good reputation among the Forum’s users, some of whom have had unpleasant personal interactions with [them] (myself included, several times over). But I don’t want our norms about personal accusations to depend on how popular or pleasant the targets are. If you were accusing me of calling you a Nazi, I’d hope you would link to evidence, and I want the same standard to hold for [Torres].

  And

  To the extent that someone’s problematic interpersonal behavior is being discussed on the Forum, I still believe we should try to actually show evidence. Many Forum readers are new to the community, or otherwise aren’t privy to drama within the field of longtermist research. If someone wants to warn the entire community that someone is behaving badly, the most effective warnings will include evidence. [...]

  Imagine showing a random person from outside the EA community* (say, someone familiar with Twitter) [this comment] and [this comment], as well as the karma scores. That person might conclude “[commenter] was right and [Torres] was wrong”. They might also conclude “[Commenter] is a popular member of the ingroup and [Torres] is getting cancelled for wrongthink”.

  And

  While some users contribute more value to Forum discussion than others [...], I associate the pattern of “giving ‘valued’ users more leeway to bend rules/​norms” with many bad consequences in many different settings.

  1. ^

     I think my original comment might have been unnecessarily ungenerous — it’s sometimes genuinely hard to track name and pronoun changes, and I should have more readily assumed that this was an honest mistake in Sabs’s original comment. However, the fact that they haven’t edited their original comment since I pointed the error out is concerning and makes the deadnaming and misgendering seem much more deliberate.

• Lizka 24 Nov 2022 17:03 UTC

  60 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: Effec­tive giving

  Welcome to the effective giving subforum!

  This is a dedicated space for discussions about effective giving.

  Get involved:

  • ❤️ Donate via Giving What We Can

  • Join the discussion

    • Share where you’re donating this giving season — and why!

    • Start a new thread in this subforum^[1]

      • Ask questions about donation decisions

      • Discuss strategic considerations about giving

  • Explore other opportunities for donating or raising money

    • Explore updated giving recommendations from GiveWell, Animal Charity Evaluators, Giving What We Can, and Happier Lives Institute

    • Book an effective giving talk at your workplace

  • Give the Forum team feedback about this beta subforum

    • Reach us at forum@centreforeffectivealtruism.org or comment on this post.

  1. ^

     Threads can be casual! This will only appear in this subforum or for people who’ve joined the subforum.

• Lizka 24 Nov 2022 10:49 UTC

  30 points

  24 ∶ 12

  in reply to: Sabs’s comment on: A Let­ter to the Bul­letin of Atomic Scientists

  Writing as a moderator. I think this comment is unnecessarily harsh and insulting, and also deadnames and misgenders Torres. It clearly violates Forum norms.

  We generally assume that deadnaming or misgendering is an honest mistake, but given that the discussion around this post has been referring to Torres by their preferred name and pronouns, I find this less plausible.

  I also find the focus on mental illness inappropriate.

  Please correct the name and pronouns in this comment. I’ll be discussing with the rest of the moderation about potential further action.

• Lizka 23 Nov 2022 19:55 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: De­lay, De­tect, Defend: Prepar­ing for a Fu­ture in which Thou­sands Can Re­lease New Pan­demics by Kevin Esvelt

  Thanks for sharing this! In case someone wants another summary/​writeup, Kelsey Piper also wrote about this for Vox’s Future Perfect.

[Question] Where are you donat­ing this year, and why? (Open thread)

• Lizka 20 Nov 2022 2:38 UTC

  8 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NeoMohist’s comment on: Does Sam make me want to re­nounce the ac­tions of the EA com­mu­nity? No. Does your re­ac­tion? Ab­solutely.

  As a moderator, I think a previous version of this comment was rude and clearly violated many Forum norms. Another comment also violates Forum norms.

  While I appreciate the edit, this is a warning, if you leave another comment like these, you will probably receive a ban.

• Lizka 19 Nov 2022 19:07 UTC

  11 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Lizka’s comment on: Com­mu­nity sup­port given FTX situation

  I have now noticed that the user’s profile was insulting and contained a slur. The moderation team is banning them permanently and I have cleared their profile. This is not appropriate for the Forum.

  Please let us know at forum-moderation@effectivealtruism.org if you’re concerned.

EA Or­ga­ni­za­tion Up­dates: Novem­ber 2022