rhys_lindmark

• rhys_lindmark 4 Jul 2017 19:45 UTC

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  in reply to: Remmelt’s comment on: Up­date on Effec­tive Altru­ism Funds

  One note on this: blockchain-based DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are a good way to decentralize a giving body (like EAFunds). Rhodri Davies has been doing good work in this space (on AI-led DAOs for effective altruism). See https://​​givingthought.libsyn.com/​​algorithms-and-effective-altruism or my recent overview of EA + Blockchain: https://​​medium.com/​​@RhysLindmark/​​creating-a-humanist-blockchain-future-2-effective-altruism-blockchain-833a260724ee

• rhys_lindmark 18 Aug 2017 16:01 UTC

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  on: Lo­cal Group Sup­port Overview: CEA, EAF and LEAN

  Thanks for aggregating this information, Richenda! One quick bucket of thoughts around EA groups + universities:

  1. How are LEAN/​CEA/​EAF thinking about university chapters? Have they been an effective way of building a local community? Are there any university-focused plans going forwards?

  2. Are there other movements trying a university-focused strategy? Could we partner/​learn from them? I’m thinking about something like Blockchain Education Network (see https://​​blockchainedu.org/​​ and https://​​medium.com/​​@rishipr/​​fa2543cdcbd8).

  Thanks Richenda!

• rhys_lindmark 18 Aug 2017 16:38 UTC

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  on: How should we as­sess very un­cer­tain and non-testable stuff?

  I definitely agree that information on these topics is ripe for aggregation/​curation.

  My instinct is to look to the VC/​startup community for some insight here, specifically around uncertainty (they’re in the business of “predicting/​quantifying/​derisking uncertain futures/​projects”). Two quick examples:

  • Micro Models—They use a gate/​funnel pattern to assess uncertainty over time. e.g. Here’s a meta framework for startup lifecycle from the entrepreneurs perspective: https://​​d3ansictanv2wj.cloudfront.net/​​lean_0505-8a1e4251dd6cd9f28b38a2eb6354a1be.png. e.g. Here’s a surprisingly helpful grid with metrics for VCs to invest in SaaS startups: https://​​www.quora.com/​​What-are-average-revenues-MRR-or-ARR-for-SaaS-companies-at-the-time-of-the-Series-A/​​answer/​​Christoph-Janz?srid=zROG

  • Macro Models—They use macro models to predict how startups play into the context of future trends. e.g. The abstraction of trust — https://​​medium.com/​​@alexdanco/​​emergent-layers-an-introduction-f91c3cbe0175 or Aggregation Theory — https://​​stratechery.com/​​2015/​​aggregation-theory/​​.

  I would expect an “EA-focused uncertainty model” to include gates that map a specific project through time given models of macro future trends.

• rhys_lindmark 23 Aug 2017 17:37 UTC

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  in reply to: John G. Halstead’s comment on: How should we as­sess very un­cer­tain and non-testable stuff?

  This isn’t a unique thought, but I just want to make sure the EA community knows about Gnosis and Augur, decentralized prediction markets built on Ethereum.

  https://​​gnosis.pm/​​

  https://​​augur.net/​​

• rhys_lindmark 23 Aug 2017 18:18 UTC

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• rhys_lindmark 24 Aug 2017 15:20 UTC

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  in reply to: Richenda’s comment on: Lo­cal Group Sup­port Overview: CEA, EAF and LEAN

  Awesome. Thanks Richenda—I’m looking into Secular Student Alliance now!

• rhys_lindmark 24 Aug 2017 15:40 UTC

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  in reply to: William_S’s comment on: Open Thread #38

  Nice link! I think there’s worthwhile research to be done here to get a more textured ITN.

  On Impact—Here’s a small example of x-risk (nuclear threat coming from inside the White House): https://​​www.vanityfair.com/​​news/​​2017/​​07/​​department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis.

  On Neglectedness—Thus far it seems highly neglected, at least at a system-level. hifromtheotherside.com is one of the only projects I know in the space (but the founder is not contributing much time to it)

  On Tractability—I have no clue. Many of these “bottom up”/​individual-level solution spaces seem difficult and organic (though we would pattern match from the spread of the EA movement).

  1. There’s a lot of momentum in this direction (the public is super aware of the problem). Whenever this happens, I’m tempted by pushing an EA mindset “outcome-izing/​RCT-ing” the efforts in the space. So even if it doesn’t score highly on Neglectedness, we could attempt to move the solutions towards more cost-effective/​consequentialist solutions.

  2. This is highly related to the timewellspent.io movement that Tristan Harris (who was at EAGlobal) is pushing.

  3. I feel like we need to differentiate between the “political-level” and the “community-level”.

  4. I’m tempted to think about this from the “communities connect with communities” perspective. i.e The EA community is the “starting node/​community” and then we start more explicitly collaborating/​connecting with other adjacent communities. Then we can begin to scale a community connection program through adjacent nodes (likely defined by n-dimensional space seen here http://​​blog.ncase.me/​​the-other-side/​​).

  5. Another version of this could be “scale the CFAR community”.

  6. I think this could be related to Land Use Reform (https://​​80000hours.org/​​problem-profiles/​​land-use-reform/​​) and how we construct empathetic communities with a variety of people. (Again, see Nicky Case — http://​​ncase.me/​​polygons/​​)

• rhys_lindmark 24 Aug 2017 15:50 UTC

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  in reply to: Vincent-Soderberg’s comment on: Open Thread #38

  I’m super into this! I’d be happy to check out your rough sketch. A couple thoughts:

  1. I think we should not bucket all of our time into a general time bucket. In fact, some of our time needs to be “fun creative working time”. e.g. Sometimes I work on EA things, and sometimes I make music. “Designing an EA board game” could be part of that “fun bucket”.

  2. A game like Pandemic (https://​​boardgamegeek.com/​​boardgame/​​30549/​​pandemic) could be a good starting point for designing the game (or to work with them on designing it). Essentially, use Pandemic as the MVP game for this, then expand to other cause areas (or to EA as a whole). Also, see 80,000 Hours most recent podcast on pandemics (the concept, not the oard game :) https://​​80000hours.org/​​2017/​​08/​​podcast-we-are-not-worried-enough-about-the-next-pandemic/​​

  3. Here’s my favorite piece on game design (by Magic the Gathering’s head designer) http://​​magic.wizards.com/​​en/​​articles/​​archive/​​making-magic/​​ten-things-every-game-needs-part-1-part-2-2011-12-19

  4. My instinct is that this should be a collaborative game (or, as William Macaskgill would say, a “shared aims community”).

• rhys_lindmark 24 Aug 2017 15:59 UTC

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  in reply to: WillPearson’s comment on: Open Thread #38

  Great question. https://​​gnosis.pm and https://​​augur.net are building decentralized prediction markets on the Ethereum blockchain. Their goal is to “match the global liquidity pool to the global knowledge pool.”

  I’ve asked them how they’re thinking about hedgehogs to form a collective fox-y model (and then segmenting the data by hedgehog type).

  But yeah, I think they will allow you to do what you want above: “Questions of the form: if intervention Y occurs what is the expected magnitude of outcome Z.”

• rhys_lindmark 24 Aug 2017 16:19 UTC

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  on: Open Thread #38

  I’m interested in quantifying the impact of blockchain and cryptocurrency from a ITN perspective. My instinct is that the technology could be powerful from a “root cause incentive” perspective, from a “breaking game theory” perspective, and from a “change how money works” perspective. I’ll have a more full post about this soon, but here’s some of my initial thoughts on the subject:

  1. https://​​medium.com/​​@RhysLindmark/​​creating-a-humanist-blockchain-future-2-effective-altruism-blockchain-833a260724ee

  2. https://​​medium.com/​​@RhysLindmark/​​10-doing-good-together-coordinating-the-effective-altruist-community-with-blockchain-188c4b7aa4b0

  I’d be especially interested in hearing from people who think blockchain/​crypto should NOT be a focus of the EA community! (e.g. It’s clearly not neglected!)

• rhys_lindmark 6 Sep 2017 18:31 UTC

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  on: Which five books would you recom­mend to an 18 year old?

  Love this exercise (I read a non-fiction book a week, so I think about this a lot!). I’d definitely put an EA book in the top 5, but I think we get more differentiated advantage by adding non-EA books too. My list:

  1. On Direction and Measuring Your Impact—Doing Good Better

  2. On Past-Facing Pattern Matching from History—Sapiens

  3. On Future-Facing Tech Trends—Machine, Platform, Crowd

  4. On Prioritization and Process—Running Lean

  5. On Communication—An Everyone Culture

  Honorable Mentions:

  1. Influence/​Hooked/​Thinking Fast and Slow (on behavioral psychology)

  2. World After Capital/​Homo Deus/​The Inevitable (more macro trends)

  3. Designing Your Life (process)

  4. Nonviolent Communication (communication)

An Ar­gu­ment To Pri­ori­tize “Pos­i­tively Shap­ing the Devel­op­ment of Crypto-as­sets”

• rhys_lindmark 4 Apr 2018 17:10 UTC

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  in reply to: Robert_Wiblin’s comment on: An Ar­gu­ment To Pri­ori­tize “Pos­i­tively Shap­ing the Devel­op­ment of Crypto-as­sets”

  Thanks! Here are my other favorite bear/​skeptical/​reasonable takes:

  • https://​​medium.com/​​john-pfeffer/​​an-institutional-investors-take-on-cryptoassets-690421158904

  • https://​​blog.chain.com/​​a-letter-to-jamie-dimon-de89d417cb80

  • https://​​prestonbyrne.com/​​2017/​​12/​​10/​​stablecoins-are-doomed-to-fail/​​

  • https://​​medium.com/​​@Melt_Dem/​​drowning-in-tokens-184ccfa1641a

  • (From a cultural perspective) https://​​www.nytimes.com/​​2018/​​01/​​13/​​style/​​bitcoin-millionaires.html

  Others?

Cur­rent Es­ti­mates for Like­li­hood of X-Risk?

• rhys_lindmark 8 Aug 2018 1:15 UTC

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  in reply to: SJ Beard’s comment on: Cur­rent Es­ti­mates for Like­li­hood of X-Risk?

  Hey Simon! Thanks writing up this paper. The final ¹⁄₃ is exactly what I was looking for!

  Could you give us a bit more texture on why you think it’s “best not to put this kind of number on risks”?

• rhys_lindmark 12 Aug 2018 18:40 UTC

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  in reply to: SJ Beard’s comment on: Cur­rent Es­ti­mates for Like­li­hood of X-Risk?

  Perfect, thanks! I agree with most of your points (and just writing them here for my own understanding/​others):

  • Uncertainty hard (long time scale, humans adaptable, risks systemically interdependent so we get zero or double counting)

  • Probabilities have incentives (e.g. Stern’s discounting incentive)

  • Probabilities get simplified (0-10% can turn into 5% or 0% or 10%)

  I’ll ping you as I get closer to a editable draft of my book, so we can ensure I’m painting an appropriate picture. Thanks again!

What is the Most Helpful Cat­e­gor­i­cal Break­down of Nor­ma­tive Ethics?

Memetic Tribes and Cul­ture War 2.0 (Ar­ti­cle Dis­cus­sion)

How can I in­ter­nal­ize my most im­pact­ful nega­tive ex­ter­nal­ities?

• rhys_lindmark 22 Jan 2019 22:28 UTC

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  in reply to: cole_haus’s comment on: How can I in­ter­nal­ize my most im­pact­ful nega­tive ex­ter­nal­ities?

  Awesome resource, thanks for the link! (Also, I had never heard of Pigouvian taxes before—thanks!)

  Given your list, I’d group the “categories” of externalities into:

  • Environment (driving, emitting carbon, agriculture, municipal waste)

  • Public health (driving, obesity, alcohol, smoking, antibiotic use, gun ownership)

  • Financial (debt)

  And, if I understand it correctly, it’s tough for me to offset some of these. This is because:

  • Luckily, I just happen to not do many of them (e.g. driving, obesity, alcohol, smoking, debt).

  • But even if I did, it’s not clear to me how to offset. i.e. Given your research in this area, could you help me answer this question—if I (or people in the developed world generally) were to offset the externalities our actions, what should we offset? 1st clear answer is paying to offset our carbon emissions. What would be “#2”, and how would we “pay” to offset it? (e.g. If I was obese, who would I pay to offset that?)

  Thanks!