I’m just a normal, functioning member of the human race, and there’s no way anyone can prove otherwise
Matt_Sharp
Karma: 930
“You say that viewed from your and many EA’s moral framework, nature has no value?”
No—Gemma said nature has no “intrinsic moral value”. There is a difference between intrinsic value and instrumental value. Intrinsic value is something that is valued for its own sake. Instrumental value is where something is valuable because it contributes to something else.Nature clearly has instrumental value, i.e. “we care about environmental protection primarily because of its impact on sentient beings”.
But nature isn’t the only thing that has an impact on sentient beings. The question is how we should best use additional resources (e.g. time and money) to improve outcomes for sentient beings.
Spending more on protecting nature is obviously one option, but not the only one. If we spend more on nature, we have less to spend on human disease and animal welfare etc. So we need to consider all the options, and focus on where we can do the most good.
That might be right. Another explanation is that even if she takes x-risk seriously, she thinks it’s easier build political support around regulating AI by highlighting existing problems.
I don’t have a clear answer—but if your concern is intense suffering of animals, why not get involved with animal rights/welfare activism? Is there a reason to favour climate activism?
This is just speculation, but I wonder if it’s more cost-effective to donate to a Senate candidate who is also running in a Presidential swing state? Maybe Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Arizona?
It seems plausible that a strong Senate candidate could inspire voters to get out and vote for a President they’re not enthusiastic about—essentially a ‘reverse coattails’ effect (though I don’t think there’s particularly strong evidence for this)
Also in the article “The Animal and Plant Health Agency—part of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs—gave the product the go-ahead.”
I think there are a bunch of EAs working at Defra—I wonder if they helped facilitate this?
Lab-grown meat approved for pet food in the UK
“The UK has become the first European country to approve putting lab-grown meat in pet food.
Regulators cleared the use of chicken cultivated from animal cells, which lab meat company Meatly is planning to sell to manufacturers.
The company says the first samples of its product will go on sale as early as this year, but it would only scale its production to reach industrial volumes in the next three years.”
I have taken the pledge but I’m not currently donating 10%, so don’t feel I can authentically promote it to others right now.
I guess it’s worth waiting to see what each party says in its manifesto.
But unless the polls dramatically tighten, it doesn’t seem particularly valuable to spend time weighing up which party to vote for at a national level because it’s highly likely (>90%) that Labour will win.
What might be valuable is considering the top couple of candidates in your local constituency (once candidates are confirmed) and going along to a hustings event to directly ask them for their views. Some constituencies will be determined by a relatively small number of votes—potentially a few hundred or even a few tens. But even if it’s a relatively safe seat, this could help nudge the winning candidate to support better safety/regulation.
I’m also confused as to why $10bn per disease is suggested, given the much higher costs of the listed examples.
However, it seems plausible that costs per disease will substantially decrease as we learn more about biology and how to successfully run eradication campaigns. For example, developing a new vaccine technology against one virus could make it much easier and cheaper to develop vaccines against related viruses.
I sort of agree, but a couple of points:
I think advice can be useful from those who have tried something but failed (though plausibly many of those who eventually succeeded will have initially failed).
If we only seek advice from those who have quite easily succeeded, we risk hearing a biased view of the world that may not be the best advice for us. We may have more in common with those who failed, and may be better off hearing from these people in order to avoid their mistakes.
Presumably, we would like to hear from a broad range of people who have been successful (possibly at different things).
In order to hear all of these different views, it would be useful for someone to research, collate, and summarise them. But to do this well, what actually matters are research and communications skills—not necessarily the ability to do the things that the successful people have done.
For example, you don’t have to be a successful entrepreneur in order to interview 50 entrepreneurs and write about what they have in common. In this case, we should take into account the writer’s previous success at being a researcher and writer, not their entrepreneurial success.
This sounds potentially valuable. However, it’s important to establish what the added value of this project would be.
What current processes/systems/databases do scientists currently use to identify relevant research and bacteria? What about these existing processes/systems/databases is most in need of improving? Which scientists in the field have you spoken to about this in order to identify the main challenges they face when using existing systems?
Also...is there a reason for only focusing on antibiotic producing bacteria and not including fungi?
https://www.socialchangelab.org/ might have some relevant insights here. They’ve done some work on which factors matter most for protest movements. Though I’m not sure what they’re currently working on, or if they have any relevant quantitative estimates and comparisons with other interventions.
Thanks for clarifying!
Interesting point about Drinkaware—I didn’t know it was partly industry-funded. Given this, even though I’d hope the information they provide is broadly accurate, I’m assuming it is more likely to be framed through the lens of personal choice rather than advocating for government action (e.g. higher taxes on alcohol).
I presume the $5-10M also only refers to alcohol-specific philanthropy? I would expect there to be some funding for it via adjacent topics, such as organisations that work on drugs/addiction more broadly, or ones that focus on promoting nutrition and healthy lifestyles.
Some excellent points.
In addition, I’m confused about the figure of $5-10m for spending on alcohol. This is roughly how much is spent by just two alcohol charities in the UK (Drinkaware and Alcohol Research UK). So global philanthropic spending on alcohol is presumably much higher—and then there’s also any government spending.
Perhaps the $5-10m figure is supposed to only apply to low and middle income countries, or money moved as part of development assistance for health?
I’m no longer going to engage with you because this comes across as being deliberately offensive and provocative.
Assuming that first claim is true, I’m not sure it follows that deferred donation looks even better. You’d still need to know about the marginal cost-effectiveness of the best interventions, which won’t necessarily change at the same rate as the wider economy.
The cost-effectiveness of interventions doesn’t necessarily stay fixed over time. We would expect it to get more expensive to save a life over time, as the lowest-hanging fruit should get picked first.
(I’m not definitely saying that it’s better to donate now rather than investing and donating later—the changing cost-effectiveness of interventions is just one thing that needs to be taken into account)
Points (1) and (3) relate to the value of the intervention rather than the value of the life of the beneficiary. If the intervention is less likely to work, or cause negative higher-order outcomes, then we should take that into account in any cost-effectiveness analysis. I think EA is very good at reviewing issues relating to point (1). Addressing point (3) is much trickier, but there is definitely some work out there looking at higher-order effects.
Point (2) relates to the difference between intrinsic and instrumental value (as previously noted by Richard). From a utilitarian perspective, it seems accurate that the economic productivity is an instrumental reason for favouring saving lives in wealthier countries.
However, this is not the only consideration when deciding where to donate. Firstly, it is typically much more expensive to save a life in a wealthy country, precisely because it is a wealthy country with relatively well-funded healthcare. Secondly, there are consequences beyond economic productivity. For example, people in wealthier countries may be more likely to regularly eat factory-farmed animals and contribute to climate change (on the other hand, because they are in a wealthier country with more resources, perhaps they are more likely to help solve these issues while also contributing to them).
This is a useful analysis, and collectively I agree it suggests there has been a negative impact overall.
However, I think you may be overly confident when you say things like “FTX has had an obvious negative impact on the number of donors giving through EA Funds”, and “Pledge data from Giving What We Can shows a clear and dramatic negative impact from FTX”.
The data appears to be consistent with this, but it could be consistent with other explanations (or, more likely, a combination of explanations including FTX). For example, over the past couple of years there has been very high inflation across many countries, and a big drop in the value of many cryptocurrencies. Both might be expected to reduce the number of donors and the amount they donate.
Strong upvote for bothering to read the terms and conditions!