mhpage

Amer­ica’s Provin­cial­ism Ratio

• mhpage 20 Apr 2015 13:46 UTC

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  in reply to: Ben Kuhn’s comment on: Amer­ica’s Provin­cial­ism Ratio

  Thanks, Ben. I agree that a nation has instrumental motives that are different in kind from those an individual might have, and those motives might create the misimpression that the nation cares about foreign lives more than it actually does. Disentangling these motives would be important so we’re sure to begin with an accurate baseline ratio.

  I disagree that nations’ concerns are entirely (noting that you say “almost entirely”) instrumental, precisely because—in theory—a democratically elected government represents the electorate, and we, the electorate, are not indifferent to foreign lives. A president who had no qualms eradicating an entire nation when it is in America’s strategic interests would not (I hope) be reelected.

  I also agree that America does not have a consistent provincialism ratio, for many reasons. One reason is that where casualties won’t come to light, the government is less likely to make sacrifices to prevent them. That, however, is simply a failure of the democratic process. In a perfect world, the entire electorate would be aware of every decision its representatives made, and their consequences. When our government touts its military accomplishments but hides those accomplishments’ true costs—knowing that their constituencies would not be okay with those costs—they’re stepping outside their proper role as our representatives.

• mhpage 20 Apr 2015 13:58 UTC

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  in reply to: Owen Cotton-Barratt’s comment on: Amer­ica’s Provin­cial­ism Ratio

  Thanks, Owen. As I mention below to Ben, I agree that, historically, there has been no consistent ratio. Were the government to act rationally/​consistently, however, I think there would be a consistent baseline ratio, and other (e.g., instrumental) considerations could then be added to that ratio to arrive at the proper policy position.

  I’m also not sure I understand the point re the difference between the ratio for lives and dollars. Assume I value American lives ten times more than African lives, i.e., my America:Africa ratio is 10:1. Under those circumstances, I’d be willing to spend ten times as much to save an American life. If it costs nine times as much to save an American life as an African life, I’d give to an America-oriented charity, but if it costs eleven times as much, I’d shift to an Africa-oriented charity.

  Now suppose there are nine Africans on one railroad track and one American on another; the train has to take one of the two tracks, and which one is up to me. . . . (you know where this is going.) Let me know if I’m misunderstanding your point, but I think the ratio should be same no matter whether we’re talking life exchanges or dollars for aid.

• mhpage 21 Apr 2015 16:08 UTC

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  on: Spread­ing EA mes­sages to friends—in­clud­ing giv­ing the hard sell

  This topic is of much interest to me as someone new to EA, who (as a lawyer) has a lot of friends with a lot of money. I’m holding off on the hard sell until I’m sure I know what I’m doing. Giving What We Can’s calculator gave me this idea for a REALLY HARD sell, which plays on the role of default-based biases. The numbers assume a U.S. lawyer about six years out of law school who is paid market rate and gives away 75% of his income:

  Yesterday the managing partner at my firm visited me and said, Michael, you’ve been working very hard for a long time, and the executive committee has taken notice. Indeed, because of your hard work you’ve been rewarded with an annual salary that puts you among the top 0.4% wealthiest people in the world. But we think you can do better. We are willing to increase your salary to put you among the top 0.1% wealthiest people in the world, and all it will cost is the lives of 65 people/​year—but don’t worry, those people live thousands of miles away. What do you say?

• mhpage 22 Apr 2015 14:20 UTC

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  on: The Out­side Crit­ics of Effec­tive Altruism

  I’m new to EA (and so effectively an outsider), and here are a few critiques that immediately come to mind, and which I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. The first two are simply aspects of EA that might render it unpalatable or too counter-intuitive for the masses:

  1. It would seem to follow that robbing from the rich and giving to the poor is ethically required. Imagine a man eating a feast with two dozen turkeys, and right next to him is a family full of starving children. If you could steal a turkey and give it to the family without anyone noticing, shouldn’t you? If so, then EA folks should really be entering into an alliance with Anonymous.

  2. Not only are rich people ethically compelled to give away money, but people are ethically compelled to take reasonable steps to become rich. That means that all of those Ivy league graduates who went to work in the charity industry were behaving unethically.

  3. Assuming a set amount of money available for charities, it’s utility-maximizing for that money to come from the richest people (given the decreasing marginal utility of money). EA’s focus on students giving away a few percent of their stipend is therefore a wildly inefficient way to maximize utility. (The response, of course, is that it’s not a zero-sum game, but it is to the extent the EA movement is focusing resources on anyone but the wealthiest people.)

• mhpage 22 Apr 2015 15:42 UTC

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  in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: The Out­side Crit­ics of Effec­tive Altruism

  Thanks, Ryan. The distinction between EA and utilitarianism is not one I’ve sufficiently focused on, and it’s a useful one to bear in mind. (With that said, I do think there are effective ways certain people could steal from the rich and give to the poor—e.g., hackers.)

• mhpage 22 Apr 2015 22:35 UTC

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  in reply to: Vincent_deB’s comment on: The Out­side Crit­ics of Effec­tive Altruism

  Vincent, your comment goes to the point I was trying to make. If a rich person has two options: (a) give money to charity; or (b) buy a yacht, and chooses (b), we (or at least I) don’t say he is behaving sub-optimally but that he is behaving unethically. Putting aside whether the Ivy league grad would enjoy working for a charity more than working in finance, how is her choice any different from the rich person’s choice? If she takes a job at a charity (assuming one for which she is entirely replaceable), rather than taking a job in finance and giving away half of her salary, she is effectively throwing away the money should could have made in finance rather than donating it to charity. How is that different than taking the job and buying a yacht? It seems intuitively different because her motives are different, but that’s irrelevant if you’re a consequentialist (which seems like part of EA’s fabric).

  From a marketing perspective, I see why we don’t want to encourage stealing (which I still think could be done in a utility-maximizing manner) or claims that charity-minded Ivy league grads are as bad as yacht-buying millionaires, but if the only reason we don’t go there is for marketing reasons, that seems like a problem.

  As to why this is a critique: I worry that the marketing strategy for EA whitewashes how radical its underlying premise truly is: that we owe the same duty to someone across the world as we do to someone right in front of us. Fully embracing that premise can lead us to extraordinarily counterintuitive (and unpalatable for many) places.

• mhpage 23 Apr 2015 18:06 UTC

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  in reply to: Larks’s comment on: The Out­side Crit­ics of Effec­tive Altruism

  EA is about (in part) extrapolating from what you would do in the near to what you should do in the far. The classic introduction hypothetical is the person drowning right in front of you. Most people’s moral instincts are that they should suffer some costs to save the person’s life. Ergo, they should suffer some costs to save starving people across the world.

  If you were to poll the world about whether people think it’s right or wrong to steal one of the two dozen turkeys from the rich man and give it to the starving family, I suspect a sizable percentage would say it’s right—or at least not wrong. You might not, but I hardly think that would be a rare response. My point is that extrapolating from that moral premise leads you to very counter-intuitive places.

• mhpage 24 Apr 2015 20:17 UTC

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  on: Please sup­port Giv­ing What We Can this Spring

  Unless I’m missing something, it seems like we all should be giving to EA advocacy groups until the amount of resources available to those groups reaches the threshold at which the donation is no longer leveraged. What’s the counter-argument? Has there been any analysis on what that threshold level is? In other words, if we take the total resources currently available to groups like Giving What We Can and The Life You Can Save, how many times those resources must we have before I should start donating to the Against Malaria Foundation?

• mhpage 27 Apr 2015 19:09 UTC

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  in reply to: impala’s comment on: Please sup­port Giv­ing What We Can this Spring

  Doesn’t every organization/​social movement that efficiently allocates resources have diminishing returns beginning with the first dollar? One reason why this could theoretically not be true is if efficient use of capital requires upfront investment in infrastructure, but I don’t know if that applies here. The concept of diminishing returns seems distinct from leverage (though obviously not unrelated).

  The signalling issue is complicated, and I’m open to suggestions. As I’m a consequentialist, I’m open simply to lying.

EA Hand­book Hard Copies for Lo­cal Hubs

• mhpage 4 May 2015 14:40 UTC

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  in reply to: BrentonMayer’s comment on: EA Hand­book Hard Copies for Lo­cal Hubs

  Hey Brenton--

  I’m printing as I go. For example, if you wanted 100 copies, I’d order a 100-copy print run and have it shipped directly to Australia (that would be $4.01/​copy with shipping). There isn’t much of a volume discount for printing, so this appears to be the most economical strategy.

  Legally, no one can exchange cash. (Otherwise, everyone would be able to order the book directly from the printer.) That’s why I’m presently footing the bill. I appreciate the tax deduction point, and I am working on a solution. (By that same logic, however, shouldn’t you be giving me all of your to-be-donated cash, and then I’ll donate it on your behalf and get a further tax deduction?)

  You can send me your address via email: mhpage@gmail.com

• mhpage 4 May 2015 22:06 UTC

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  on: May Open Thread

  Two questions: (i) do you agree with my hypothesis; and (ii) if so, does it matter?

  Non-directed kidney donation seems to be a part of the EA culture, for obvious reasons. Separately, a cornerstone of the EA perspective is that emotional empathy is not enough: cognitive empathy (i.e., reason) should play a critical, even dominant, role in our moral decision-making.

  A recent, highly publicized study found that non-directed kidney donors have greater-than-average emotional empathy: “The results of brain scans and behavioral testing suggests that these donors have some structural and functional brain differences that may make them more sensitive, on average, to other people’s distress.” http://​​www.georgetown.edu/​​news/​​abigail-marsh-brain-altruism-study.html

  Hypothesis: That doesn’t hold for EA types that have donated kidneys.

• mhpage 5 May 2015 15:14 UTC

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  in reply to: Tom_Ash’s comment on: May Open Thread

  Thanks for the link, Tom. And yes, I agree that my hypothesis is an indirect answer to the question you posed elsewhere in this thread.

  I don’t personally know that many EAs, but I am certainly on the cold side of the emotional spectrum. I am sure there are psych/​neuroscience papers on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if emotional and cognitive empathy can work at cross purposes (see, e.g., trolley hypotheticals), which might be why those who have a lot of the latter have less of the former.

• mhpage 5 May 2015 15:36 UTC

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  in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: Kid­ney dona­tion is a rea­son­able choice for effec­tive al­tru­ists and more should con­sider it

  I’m a bit late to the party, but a couple quick thoughts from a kidney donor who also does earning to give. First, I used paid vacation time to donate my kidney, so the entire discussion about salary trade-off is inapplicable to me (and I assume would be for most high-earning people). Second, I was working again about five days after surgery. I used those five days to read books I had been planning to read but for which I didn’t have the time.

  Another benefit of kidney donation that needs to be taken into account: My understanding is that most forms of kidney failure affect both of a person’s kidneys, meaning whether you have one or two is irrelevant. But because I donated a kidney, if I ever need a kidney, I go to the top of the waiting list. Therefore, I have actually hedged against the risk of (certain types of) kidney failure by donating a kidney.

• mhpage 6 May 2015 13:56 UTC

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  on: May Open Thread

  Should we be paying much more attention to what evangelical religions have done (effectively or ineffectively) to recruit?

• mhpage 6 May 2015 17:05 UTC

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  in reply to: toron’s comment on: May Open Thread

  I know next to nothing about their methods other than that (i) they’ve been developing them for a long time and (ii) they seem to be effective. The singular importance of recruitment is an unusual quality for a social movement, but it’s one we both have in common.

• mhpage 11 May 2015 14:38 UTC

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  on: You are a Lot­tery Ticket

  Very interesting, Ben. Thanks for posting.

  Here’s an idea indirectly related to your article: The EA community has an incredible amount of intellectual talent. And it is unusual as far as communities go in that everyone’s motive to make money is selfless. For that reason, I am indifferent to whether I make a million dollars all by myself or whether I make it with the help of 40 other people (aside from differences in the initial investment). Given that, isn’t the EA community uniquely positioned to crowd source a business idea, fund that idea with an EA-friendly VC, hire EA types to run the business, and then give the vast majority of the returns (if any) to EA causes? Would it be a good investment for EA Ventures, for example, to organize an entrepreneurial think tank?

• mhpage 17 May 2015 16:35 UTC

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  on: Should I be ve­gan?

  Wonderful essay. Thanks, Jess. A few responses:

  (i) It’s not clear to me that the vegan-vegetarian distinction makes sense, as I believe, for example, that consuming eggs or milk can be more harmful (in terms of animal suffering) than certain forms of meat consumption.

  (ii) Related to (i) (and to Paul_Christiano’s point re “other ways to make your life worse to make the world better”), other than for signalling/​heuristic reasons, I don’t think being categorically vegan/​vegetarian is all that important. I believe that reducing animal products in my diet is always a good thing. I also believe that not buying coffee at coffee shops and, instead, donating the money to an animal-welfare organization is always a good thing. But I don’t make the latter a categorical life philosophy. For that reason, I treat my diet just like every other facet of my life: I try to understand the consequences of my actions, identify the ethically ideal direction, and move in that direction wherever I reasonably can, recognizing that I am a deeply imperfect ethical actor.

  (iii) Soylent is the solution to all!! It’s now vegan, good for you, cheap, etc. I’d consume it in place of most meals even if I had no regard for animal welfare.

• mhpage 17 May 2015 20:34 UTC

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  in reply to: Bitton’s comment on: Should I be ve­gan?

  I use the recycling analogy when talking to people about this issue. I consider myself to be one-who-recycles, but if I have bottle in my hand and there’s nowhere convenient to recycle it, I’ll throw it away. Holding onto that bottle all day because I’ve decided I’m a categorical recycler seems kind of silly. I treat food the same way.

  Regarding your broader point re consistency, my guess is that we way over-emphasize the effect of diet over other relatively cost-less things we can do to make the world a better place—in large part because there are organized social movements around diet. That of course doesn’t necessarily mean we should eat more animal products but rather that we should try to identify other low-hanging-fruit means of improving the world.