Nor in Scandinavia. Driving, or riding trains, you often see cows grazing on pastures. Of course, that is not in the slaughterhouse, or when their young are taken away from them, but I still wonder whether their life on average is worse than mine. (I am also going to die one day, and adjusted for my greater understanding I am not sure mine will be a more pleasant death than a cow’s.)
RogerAckroyd
Karma: 195
Alternative protein work does not involve a direct focus on welfare, but it equally seems to not involve a direct focus on advocacy.
For PR-reasons, something involving anti-cruelty might be a good term.
The last I read about Integrated Information Theory was Scott Aaronsson’s criticism of it. Has his arguments been addressed, because I found it very compelling?
I would be careful about psycholigical explanations for followers of the EA movement committing fraud. It might be due to ends-justify-the-means thinking, but other possibilities, such as EA alignment being a useful tool to faciliate fraud, are also possible.
At least on Twitter I felt that EA followers gave quite a lot of attention to SBF in particular. It certainly was positive PR for him and his companies, but I think an obvious risk for the movement.
I had no inkling the problems with FTX, but I had was somewhat surprised to see the crypto influence on the EA movement. Even absent fraud crypto currency businesses seemed to be financially risky, and also posing a PR-problem.
I wish Giving What We Can’s donation page had my credit card number saved. Would remove a slight moment of annoyance each month.
There is a lot of EA content on Twitter. It can’t replace this forum for serious debate, but for someone like me who mainly consumes EA content to maintain motivation long-term it does well enough.
For people with math/technical background the easiest way to express certain ideas may be in a mathy way.
From animal EAs in the US there is talk about upcoming Supreme court case where California import restrictions on pork produced to lower standards are likely to be overturned. A sad turn of events if it happens. Also find it annoying that some activists are trying to ally it with larger left-wing cause, and warn it will lead to general race to bottom when it comes to regulations. As someone who is more right-wing on many issues I am not very worried about race to bottom when it comes to labor market regulation. I also don’t see how it is tactically smart to tie defense of animal welfare standards to larger project of ending domestic free trade in US. SC is never going to write an opinion that would allow Californa to ban import from states with lower minimum wage, and that would also be a step much too far for the Biden adminstration and most Democrats, yet animal-friendly lawyers on Twitter seem completely unconcerned to suggest that this is the principle they want.
Would this be specifically violence against women and girls in poor countries, or globally?
Been reading about cryptocurrencies and block-chain. Cool technologies, but the valuation of current cryptocurrencies seems like a bubble that must crash, and the people who are “investing” in crypto right now are gambling, and I worry they do not know they are gambling.
I hope current EA-aligned people in crypto manage to cash out, and that there is no reputational harm for the movement from the fact that some well-known proponents work in the field.
Gresham College is hosting an event with the title “Does Philanthropy do the Public Good?” by Professor David King. It can be watched afterwards here https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/good-philanthropy.
It might be interesting, or alternatively it might be terrible but relevant for EAs to know what views are put out in the public debate.
The current conflict with Russia has increased my estimate of the importance of democratization. I think a democratic Russia would be unlikely to go to war with brother country like Ukraine. Many efforts to spread democracy seem pretty unsuccesful.
I wonder whether democratic countries sometimes could make deals with dictators to allow a gradual change to democracy, only finishing when the dictator dies or decides to retire. Assuming the dicator cares somewhat about his country’s long-term future he might be persuaded that democracy is best way of ensuring peace and prosperity for it long-term.
Of course we can’t be, but sanctions are also nothing new. And rogue countries like Russia also understand how sanctions work and would already use them if it could.
Definitely worrying about WW3 or nuclear holocaust at the moment. I gave an extra donation to long-terminst causes this month. Don’t usually donate to them, but the argument that some long-term thinking should be promoted seemed convincing now.
I hope, but have no real reason to believe, that western leaders know how far they can support Ukraine without causing the war to spread.
Estimates of Trump’s wealth vary. He is certainly controversial, but I don’t think his detractors view him as a billionaire.
Scott Aaronsson has received a grant to redistribute and is asking for charity recommendations. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6232 Note that he indicates AI-risk and other rationalist-flavored organisations are disfavored, but the blog post might still be of some interest.
It would seem to enourage competition inside parties, and even sabotaging party comrades, in a way that does not happen in most proportional representation systems, since it is important to be among the most popular candidates in the party.
Should you hope that you are doing good? Perhaps not. For a number of cause areas you should probably hope that you are achieving nothing, or actually doing harm. Eg, if you are working on x-risk reduction you should hope what you are doing is not neccessary, in which case you are probably doing harm by reducing growth.