“the main lesson we should draw is that most people do terrible things when their surroundings excuse it, and show far less regret than Caroline has.”
Hiring Caroline for a finance position within 6 months of her getting out of jail for billions of dollars of fraud is exactly her surroundings excusing it.
By ‘this space’ I meant AI Safety. I at least see a lot of Anthropic roles being published on 80k and have seen AI safety clubs direct people towards Anthropic fellowships as they would MATS.
A lot of AI safety people I know are excited about Anthropic and I don’t fully understand why. My instinct is to distrust company because they’re the one pushing the AI arms race, autonomously hacking three companies, and IPO’ing, but am likely missing something because of how respected they are within this space. Are there examples where they have counterfactually produced some result, policy, or finding that has slowed down capabilities progress more than they have themselves pushed capabilities?
To me, these statements don’t seem wrong. Insofar as they are jabs at Rationalism, they seem both warranted and true (maybe the second to last is a bit too gratuitous).
i see your point, but i am wary both of authoritarianism (even if we don’t call it that) and arguments of the form “problem x exists because we don’t have enough information, ASI will definitionally have enough information, so if ASI, problem x dissolves.” The former is bad for myriad reasons, and the latter either doesn’t seem to have much to say or bakes in controversial assumptions about problem x (in this case, that just economic distribution is a solvable and mere epistemic problem). I have more to write on this conjunction if you are interested. I aim to publish by the end of the month.
what you are describing is not like any socialsm that has been defended. this sounds much more like enlightened despotism by an incontestable ruler
Of course! I love thinking through environmental ethics :)
On the first one, I believe it still makes sense to talk at the level of groups even if the benefits go to individuals. We can think of it the same way we think of other systemic harms. Where benefits and burdens are distributed along class lines on the basis of class membership, treating the affected parties as mere individuals is reductive; the class is the level at which the harm operates. We couldn’t reasonably conceive of giving each individual piping plover their due, but we could generate structures that benefit them as a class (such as closing stretches of New York’s cost to humans). The reason for that would be on a more systemic level: piping plovers have been harmed due to their membership to a form of life like that of a piping plover. Thus, we need to (systemically) reduce those harms at the source by removing barriers for those with a form of life like that of a piping plover. This is the familiar justification for reparations, or for programs aimed at getting more women into STEM.
It also doesn’t touch the value qua species—though very few people in the environmental ethics literature believe that our taxonomizing itself generates value. This argument is, though, a good reason to protect endangered species over non-endangered species in virtue of them being ‘endangered species,’ which seemed to be the heart of the post.
On the second, Tandena below did a good job articulating my position. It’s not clear to me that diversity is merely instrumental, and I think there would be something bad about a world where everyone, keeping happiness equal, were social, cultural, and biological clones of one person. The Borg as a villain in Star Trek seems like an analagous point. Tandena did a good job on the species breeding point. But another point is, if I had a kid, I would encourage them to live life weirdly, to break the mould, and be a little freakish. I think that’s really cool!
Tandena’s history point is also solid—one of my professors in undergrad, Ron Sandler, wrote a lot on it. Eric Katz also cares a lot about it.
The rationale for it being worse to kill an endangered species will be wrong for two reasons. I personally strongly believe the first reason, and am really agnostic about the second—though I do think it is strong.
First, endangerment is a historical injustice upon a particular marginalized community—we, you and I, are (the vast majority of the time) the ones endangering some animals while benefitting some others. There is likely a duty of restitution, or at least, a stronger pro tanto reason to not further historical injustice.
Second, the thing that is valuable isnt rarity per say, but maybe something like diversity. In the human case, I think it is both instrumentally valuable and intrinsically valuable that there are a lot of different people living a lot of different ways. I think human diversity is beautiful, and the world would actually be worse if one particular mode of life dominated the rest. Something like this justifies a pro tanto stance against cultural imperialism. In the animal and plant world, I do value that there are so many different ways of experiencing life. The world would actually be worse if every animal was a rat. Not just for environmental reasons, but because it would be boring and lack the full expression of life.
this is cool! thank you for doing the work.
this is interesting to me for many reasons, but one that sticks out is that these are some of the best people to ever live on impact-oriented grounds. that’s troubling to me, since i do see most of them as bad people, despite their donations. the conclusion then is either that i should reorient my view of the people on this list, or, decide that there is substantially more to doing good than counting the amount of lives saved. i think i’m inclined towards the latter.
Np!
As I mentioned a bit in the post, I think it will not only be easier to do, but something I think you can make more headway on. I also think there is a lot of value in contributing to your local community and getting to know the people within it better. You will be more likely create meaningful connections ‘on the ground.’ There is also of course no harm in splitting your time between the two cities!
I think it might be best for you to get involved in your local community to help out, especially at your age. It will allow you to connect with neighbors, make meaningful connections, and build a virtuous character as you grow up. There is also much more you can do when you volunteer in person at as well—youre unlikely to make much traction in policy without a looot of work or research experience, though Im sure youll get there someday given your ambition :)
Id recommend visiting a local homeless shelter for volunteering options if youre interested in housing justice.
Hope this helps!
Correct me if Im wrong, but it doesnt seem like virtue ethics or care ethics relies on side constraints—they seem uniquely deontic. Im not sure that rejecting deontology implies a form consequentialism as virtue or feminist ethics are still viable at that point.
Very interesting discussion. I think something that (understandably, as your thesis here is narrow) should be considered is how ethical theories outside of utilitarianism and deontology should be considered. Although you provided a fairly strong argument against deontology, there was no argument for uniquely utilitarianism as many of the intuition you had against deontology could also apply to most other ethical theories. Perhaps a virtue ethical, care ethical, or communitarian approach could accommodate for the short comings of deontology as well as (or maybe better than!) utilitarianism.
Thank you for the post!
I care for non-optics reasons, and would appreciate a follow up when you find the time.