My foremost priority is a world without severe suffering.
Currently, I’m a researcher and administrator at Invincible Wellbeing. Before that, I did earning-to-give as a software engineer at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Spark Wave, and other organisations.
Feel free to book an (informal) call w/ me if you would like to discuss suffering abolition or effective altruism more broadly: https://calendly.com/nil-ea/call-with-nil.
Views are my own.
Thanks, Pablo. The criteria will help to avoid some future long disputes (and thus save time for more important things), although it wouldn’t have prevented my creating the entry for David Pearce, for he does fit the second condition, I think. (We disagree, I know.)
(I observed downvotes from 10 to 5. Is there anything that controversial in or about the post?..)
Imagine how it would change humanity’s priorities if each day, “just” for a minute, each human adult experienced the worst suffering occurring that day on the planet (w/o going psychotic afterwards somehow). (And, for the reasons outlined in the post, we probably underestimate how much that torturous mind-”broadcasting” would change humanity’s lived-out ethics.)
The slow (if not revese) progress towards a world without intense suffering is depressing, to say the least. So thank you for writing this inspiring piece.
It aslo reminded me of David Pearce’s essay “High-tech Jainism”. It outlines a path towards civilization that abolished suffering while also warns about potential pitfalls like forgetting about suffering too soon, before it’s prevented for all sentient beings. (In Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications (ch. 13) mentioned in the post, Vinding even argues that, given the irreducible uncertainty about suffering re-emerging in the future, there’s always risk in disconnecting from suffering completely.)
The more pessimistic argument is that moral progress arises as a function of economic and technological progress, and can’t occur in isolation. We didn’t give up slaves until it was economically convenient to do so, and likely won’t give up meat until we have cost and flavor competitive alternatives.
FWIW this assessment seems true to me, at least for eating non-human animals, for I don’t know enough about the economic drives behind slavery. (If one is interested, there’s a report by the Sentience Institute on the topic, titled “Social Movement Lessons From the British Antislavery Movement: Focused on Applications to the Movement Against Animal Farming ”.)
It’s tempting to wash away our past atrocities under the guise of ignorance, but I’m worried humanity just knowingly does the wrong thing.
I would put it something like “as a rule, we do what is most convenient to us”.
And I would also like to add that even if one causes terrible suffering “knowingly”, there’s still the irreducible ignorance of being disconnected from the first-hand experiencing of that suffering, I think. I.e, yes, we can say that one “knows” that one is causing extreme suffering, yet if one knew what this suffering is really like (i.e. if one experienced it on “oneself”), one wouldn’t do it. (Come to think of it, this would also reduce one’s moral uncertainty by the way.)
I didn’t have in mind to sound harsh. Thanks for pointing this out: it now seems obvious to me that that part sounds uncharitable. I do appologise, belatedly :(
What I meant is that currently these new, evolving inclusion criteria are difficult to find. And if they are used in dispute resolutions (from this case onwards), perhaps they should be referenced for contributors as part of the introduction text, for example.
Perhaps voting on cases where there is a disagreement could achieve a wider inclusiveness or at least less controversy? Voters would be e.g. the moderators (w/ an option to abstain) and several persons who are familiar w/ the work of a proposed person.
It may also help if inclusion criteria are more specific and are not hidden until a dispute arises.
I should have been more clear about Drexler: I don’t dispute that he is “connected to EA to a significant degree”. But so is Pearce, in my view, for the reasons outlined in this thread.
Chalmers and Hassabis fall under the category of “people who have attained eminence in their fields and who are connected to EA to a significant degree”. Drexler, and perhaps also Chalmers, fall under the category of “academics who have conducted research of clear EA relevance”.
First, I want to make it clear that I don’t question that any of the persons I listed in my previous comment should be removed from the wiki. I just disagree that not including Pearce is justified.
Again, I honestly don’t think that it is true that Chalmers and Drexler are “connected to EA to a significant degree” while Pearce isn’t. Especially Chalmers: from what I know, he isn’t engaged w/ effective altruism, besides once agreeing for being interviewed at the 80,000 Hours podcast.
As for the “attained eminence in their fields” condition, I do see that it may be harder to resolve for Pearce’s case since he isn’t an academic but rather an independent philosopher, writer, and advocate. But if Pearce’s field as suffering abolitionism, then the “attained eminence in their fields” condition does hold, in my view: he both is the founder of the “abolitionist project” and has written extensively on why’s and how’s of the project.
Also, as I mentioned in the original comment proposing the entry, Pearce’s work has inspired many EAs, including Brain Tomasik, the Qualia Research Institute’s Andrés Gómez Emilsson, and the Center for Reducing Suffering’s Magnus Vinding, and the nascent field of welfare/compassionate biology. Also, Invincible Wellbeing research group has been inspired by Pearce’s work as well.
I don’t have any new arguments to make, and I don’t expect anyone involved to change their minds anyway. I only hope it may be worth time of others to contribute their perspectives on the dispute.
And as Michael suggests above, it may be more productive at this point to consider how many entries on EA-relevant persons are desirable in the first place.
Best regards,
nil
Thank you for appreciating the contribution.
Since Pablo is trusted w/ deciding on the issue, I will address my questions about the decision directly to him in this thread.
I’m sorry to hear this, Pablo, as I haven’t been convinced that Pearce isn’t relevant enough for effective altruism.
Also, I really don’t see how the persons below have contributed more or are more relevant to effective altruism than Pearce (that is not necessarily to say that their entities aren’t warranted!). May it be correct to infer that at least some of these entries received less scrutiny than Pearce’s nomination?
And perhaps:
After reviewing the discussion, and seeing that no new comments have been posted in the past five days, I’ve decided to delete the article, for the reasons I outlined previously.
May I ask why five days since the last comment were deemed enough for proceeding to the deletion? Is this part of the wiki’s rules? (If so, it must be my fault that I didn’t have time to reply in time.)
I also wanted to say that despite the disagreement, I appreacite that the wiki has a team commiteed to it.
For those who may want to see the deleted entry, I’m posting it below:
David Pearce is a philosopher and writer best known for his 1995 manifesto The Hedonistic Imperative and the associated ideas about abolishing suffering for all sentient life using biotechnology and other technologies.Pearce argues that it is “technically feasible” and ethically rational to abolish suffering on the planet by replacing Darwinian suffering-based motivational systems with minds animated by “information-sensitive gradients of intelligent bliss” (as opposed to indiscriminate maxed-out bliss). He stresses that this “abolitionist project” is compatible with a diverse set of values and “intentional objects” (i.e. what one is happy “about”).
In 1998 together with Nick Bostrom, Pearce co-founded the World Transhumanist Association, today known as Humanity+.
Pearce is the director of bioethics of Invincible Wellbeing and is on the advisory boards of the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering and since 2021 the Qualia Research Institute. He is also a fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is on the futurist advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation.
… I think the reason for The Hassenfeld Exception is that, as far as I’m aware, the vast majority of his work has been very connected with GiveWell. So it’s very important and notable, but doesn’t need a distinct entry. Somewhat similar with Tegmark inasmuch as he relates to EA, though he’s of course notable in the physics community for non-FLI-related reasons. …
This makes sense to me, although one who is more familiar w/ their work may find their exclusion unwarranted. Thanks for clarifying!
In this light I still think an entry for Pearce is justified, to a degree scientifically grounded proposals for abolishing suffering is an EA topic (and this is the main theme of Pearce’s work). But I’m just one input of course.
Regarding Tomasik, we have different intuitions here: if an entry for Tomasik may not be justified, then I would say this sets a high bar which only original EA founders could reach. (For Tomasik himself is a founder of an EA charity—the Foundational Research Institute / Center on Long-Term Risk—has written extensively on many topics highly relevant to EA, and an advisor at the Center for Reducing Suffering, another EA org.) Anyway, this difference doesn’t probably matter in practice since you added that you lean towards Tomasik’s having an entry.
deleted
I’ll propose the tag on that page …
Done.
David Pearce (the tag will be removed if others think it’s not warranted)
Arguments against:
One may see David Pearce much more related to transhumanism (even if to the most altruistic “school” of transhumanism) than to EA (see e.g. Pablo’s comment).
Some of Pearce’s ideas goes against certain established notions in EA: e.g. he thinks sentience of classical digital computers is impossible under the known laws of physics, that minimising suffering should take priority over increasing happiness of the already well-off, that environmental interventions alone, w/o raising individuals’ hedonic setpoints and making these individuals invincible to severe suffering, cannot solve the problem of suffering and achieve sustainable high wellbeing for all.
I also should mention that I’m biased in proposing this tag, as Pearce’s work played a major role in my becoming an EA.
Arguments for:
For over 25 years David Pearce has been researching and writing about addressing the root cause of suffering on the planet using bio/nano/info/robo technology.
Pearce has been raising awareness about, and proposing solutions for, wild-animal suffering at least since 1995.
Several relatively prominent EAs cite Pearce’s work as having major influence on their values, including Brain Tomasik, the Qualia Research Institute’s Andrés Gómez Emilsson, and the Center for Reducing Suffering’s Magnus Vinding. Another recognition of Pearce’s work is his being invited as a speaker for EA Global: Melbourne 2015.
Unlike most other transhumanists, Pearce is antispeciesist and advocates using technology to benefit all sentient life.
Hi Pablo,
I’ll propose the tag on that page, for I do think that a tag for David Pearce is justified (and if it isn’t, then I might question some existing tags for EA persons).
This is not on direct harm, but if AI risks are exaggerated to a degree that the worst scenarios are not even possible, then a lot of EA talent might be wasted.
For those who are skeptical about AI skepticism may be interested in reading Magnus Vinding’s “Why Altruists Should Perhaps Not Prioritize Artificial Intelligence: A Lengthy Critique”.
Does anyone know if there’s an ISA (Individual Savings Account) w/ a fund that doesn’t invest in meat and dairy companies and companies that test on animals? (I know that I can open an ISA on something like Trade 212 and invest in individual stocks myself. But due to having more important things to work on, I’m looking for a more “invest-and-forget” type of investing.)