This seems to overstate how important the ea forum is
MarcusAbramovitch
Karma: 1,560
My problem with this is that it’s not falsifiable.
If I’m willing to bet, I need to take “edge”. I am not going to bet at my actual odds since that gives no profit for me.
1⁄2. I think nearly every president committed crimes, for example, war crimes. This mainly depends on what he is prosecuted for as opposed to what is committed.
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If the constitution is amended that seems fine. I’m fine to bet on something like this though.
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I’m not sure why that matters. People can elect people you and I disagree with ideologically.
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I don’t think I understand this one. Can you clarify?
I feel like people are converting their dislike of Trump into unwarranted fears. I don’t like Trump but it’s not helpful to fear monger.
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Sure, we don’t have to bet at 50⁄50 odds. I’m willing to bet at say 90⁄10 odds in your favor that the next election is decided by electoral college or popular vote with a (relatively) free and fair election comparable to 2016, 2020 and 2024.
I agree that Trump is… bad for lack of a better word and that he seeks loyalty and such. But the US democracy is rather robust and somehow people took the fact that it held up strongly as evidence that… democracy was more fragile than we thought.
I’m willing to bet (and i already have one bet) against US democracy falling.
I have generally found the fears of democracy failing in the US to be hyperbolic and without much good evidence. The claims are also very “vibes-based” and/or partisan rather than at the object level.
Perhaps, to quell your concerns, you should make concrete what you are concerned about and I will try to respond to that
For starters, we have already had a Trump presidency and while the transition was not ideal, it happened and thus should make you less concerned about a Trump dictatorship/autocracy. US institutions help up strong against a real overturning of the election.
Again, happy to formalize a bet on this.
Very good read. Thanks for writing this. This should be a more read post.
First, I loved this comment. I think we might have more philosophical animal support in the highest places in this administration than ever before.
Second, I’m not going to pretend that animal welfare is predominantly left wing but I’ve been surprised at the recent reception among right wingers.
nope, the fact that @Karthik Tadepalli verified you shows I am wrong. I am sorry for accusing you. The google scholar link not working seemed like a scam because it would look legit until you clicked it. If you want one more suspicious thing is that you posted it twice. Nonetheless, I apologize wholeheartedly.
Your google scholar link here works but not on your profile. That was one of the things that led me to believe it was a scam
Tagging that this looks like a scam/fakeI was wrong and apologize. I don’t endorse anymore.
I think it’s worth pointing out that while the US might be the most influential country on the world stage, the vast majority of animals do not reside in the US. A plurality of EAs may be in the US but it’s important to remember that the US isn’t the whole world and while this may be a small set back, I’m quite hopeful for the animal movement as a whole.
Interesting I’m quite bullish on Vivek for animal issues since I think he ver much has the ear of Trump insofar as that matters and on a random Thursday, he could just get a bunch of executive orders through. Trump is far less ideological than most.
I think most would agree with your vote recommendation here, as would I, but I very much fear the Tyler Cowen idea that EA just becomes another wing of the democratic party. It’s definitely far from clear that Kamala is the better choice for President and EA already skews incredibly liberal anyway. I would like EA to be as apolitical as possible, focused only on key priorities and aiming as much as possible to have the policy we support be as bipartisan as possible.
Furthermore, it’s important to be as grounded in fact as possible when it comes to discussing EA topics and not come at issues with our biases. I can’t get behind the paywall on the AI article but it seems like a hyperbolic opinion piece. Trump is certainly not speaking of banning vaccinations that I can find. The articles that suggest it are referring to RFK being potentially part of the administration which is obviously not the same thing. Point (e) is hard to see as anything other than a partisan talking point.
I know this post is a bit of an older post but I question why it needs to be a policy advocacy organization and not a “let’s just get this done” organization with some approval by governments with studies done.
I suppose I fear that many people like the allure of policy advocacy because the leverage seems great but in practice there are just a ton of roadblocks at every corner that are lurking when you have to convince corrupt legislators, stagnant and bureaucratic government departments, politicians who mainly care about their re-election/power and looking good short term to voters and more dumb roadblocks.
Because of the down votes, I’ll explain why.
I think “holistic” is often a way of simply “doing whatever I feel like in the first place without looking at data” or doing it on “vibes”. I think it is the opposite of rigor and evidence.
“Holistic” has to be the word that I feel is most antithetical to EA
Prior to EA, I worked with a political party/candidate in Canada (who was an MP and cabinet minister) and I also worked at the National Research Council of Canada.
I wouldn’t just say could. I’m fairly certain this will be quite bad for animal welfare
Interesting, I think precisely the opposite. From my experience in government, this is where highly capable people lose ambition and go on to live lives of mediocrity, conformity and no impact. You learn to be a bureaucratic paper pusher who does as they are told and work 9-4 with lots of breaks and holidays and never has any metrics they need to hit.
I’m sure this comment will get downvoted but I think it at least needs to be out there.
I find the Gaetz and Hegeseth picks to be a bit worrying. I struggle to find a reason that the Gabbard is bad at all. In fact, I think she is probably good? She’s a former congresswoman, city councillor, hawaii house rep and member of the national guard, etc. She seems like a good pick who is concerned about the US tendency to intervene in foreign countries.
Now, to be clear, I find the Gaetz and Hegeseth picks to be bad but I thought Trump would do these types of things and I think there is a whole universe of things that Trump could have done and so he did some mildly-moderately bad ones.
So, he did some bad things but it was around expectation and nothing yet in the tails and thus I shouldn’t update in the direction of totalitarianism.
I’m still not finding anything to really be alarmed about other than people I know being alarmed.