I hope you’ve smiled today :)
Discovering EA has been one of the best things to happen to me in my life. I think I likely share something really important with all the people that consider themselves under this umbrella. EA can be a question, sure, but I hope more than that that EA can be a community, one that really works towards making the world a little better than it was. Please feel free to message if I can ever be of help.
Thanks so much Osmani, it means a lot to hear when a project has helped people :)
Absolutely! And sorry for the lag.
I’m interested in how you make your donation (or prioritization) decisions between causes? I think I might have more grounding for the debate understanding that, but continuing on with this thread...
I think that this maybe doesn’t take into account some of the arguments we have in the moral diversity section (and also the idea above of moral seriousness). The sort of reasoning you outline is this more totalizing utilitarian consideration where all of your donating is lead by some key factors (i.e. moral weights, the expected size of the future, etc.).
We’re getting at something different in the section you’re pulling from (namely that indirect effects are really important and should be considered) but in this other one we’re saying “Maybe consider splitting your allocation across different groups rather than just letting one utility function dominate it all”. GHD is something like a “helping humans now” bucket for me that I never want to fully ignore because I think that’s important.
One difference worth highlighting: animal welfare is probably the only thing on this list you can contribute to without working or donating. I suspect that if you tried to come up with a more general “How much have you changed you life for this cause?” question AW would get a boost from the large amount of vegans.
I think there’s a pluralism of values here where the value of GHD doesn’t hinge just on it’s AW effects, i.e. we value it as a cause priority on its own. The point there was meant to be something more like “GHD looks good, but I also care about animals, so how do I decide what to do given the meat-eater problem? Well, it seems like the meat-eater problem might plausibly be canceled out by effects on WAW (more people taking up more space), so when you’re trying to decide the sign of the effect of GHD on AW it seems reasonable to conclude uncertainty.”
Effects on AW are an important consideration for GHD but they’re not the only or most important factor going into the overall positivity of the cause. Does that make sense?
Really well written, and an incredibly good breakdown of some of some of the strategic factors here that I wouldn’t have come up with myself reading the above.
But I also think you may have partially missed the mark here. Statements like:
Trying new approaches in this complex and relatively new space is great if you thoughtfully measure if it works or not.
are utilitarian in flavor and really the whole of the comment is. What if you think this sort of thing is just promoting bad norms that just sort of feel deontologically wrong?
One way I can see that is violating a norm of kindness to others. Vegans sacrifice a lot, and to have someone highlighting the negatives from within the movement isn’t great vibes. “But they’re not talking about current vegans, just those potentially thinking about change” Okay great, try telling the Christian that they should stop recruiting because Christians “annoy friends and family” leading a lifestyle that’s a significant burden to everyone, themselves included. I doubt they’ll be enthused. To state what I mean here more clearly rather than leaving it to be inferred: casting sometimes that’s a big part of someone’s life in a negative life generally doesn’t make their day better.
But they protest “No no, you got us wrong. We really are pro vegans, we just think this is a more effective way to get eyes on the issue and increase exposure to AW topics” Now I think this is potentially violating some norm of trust or honesty. Maybe if the person comes to care about AW they wouldn’t really care in the end, but I know if I decided to start donating rather than trying for diet change again, just to discover that this was all some ploy to drum up further controversy and reach, I’d feel played and more than a bit disillusioned.
If I put on my utilitarian cap, everything you say above seems right. If I put on my deontologist cap, this campaign just doesn’t seem quite right. The utilitarian in me feels compelled to say “but I also don’t know what it’s like to work in comms around AW, and maybe attention really is just some significant bottleneck standing between further animal lives saved”. The deontologist then responds “yeah, maybe. But is this the type of thing you’d see in a healthy community of animal advocates?” [1]
I realize that you’re not endorsing the strategy and are just analyzing it, part of this speaks to the analysis but part of it is also aimed at those executing as well.
Fair enough. Would you consider yourself one of those disillusioned EAs that’s been attracted by the message?
Like Noah said, disagreement is great, closed-mindedness and antagonism is not.
I don’t see many productive ways this continues so I’ll keep it short.
If someone thinks you’re making poor decisions, and wants to see your downfall, silence is the best way to go about that. Engaging with you further is not, and should probably clue you in that that’s not their primary motivation.
Chalking up anything negative anyone says about your work as part of The Big Plot Against You closes the door to productive conversation quickly. You entrench yourself and flag that there’s little chance you change your mind, and I then question why I’m responding.
“PauseAI doesn’t need you” takes the door you were already closing and slams it shut. I truly hoped for better.
I can actually read most of this and feel understanding, but pieces like “I think, if it survives at all, EA will” or “I’m already beating you and” strain that capacity quite a bit.
You do actually disagree with some people, and maybe making that clear and spelling it out is worth it. But you’re taking further people, who could be sympathetic but are still deciding how they feel, and pushing them away by trying to paint a community they may care about as hollow and death-bound.
As far as I can tell, posts like this don’t help anyone, neither you, nor Pause, nor EA. You’re expecting antagonism to wake people up, but is that really an effective strategy for building support? Look at your donors, look at those who are still more aligned with EA than you are. Did they come from one of the many angry-style posts you’ve written recently, or one of the earlier or more substantive ones arguing for the core of Pause and why it’s needed? You know your donors better, but I know where I’d be making my bet.
Still working my way through the talk and post mentioned, so pardon the tardiness, but does that mean you expect the highest quality talent will naturally find it’s way to the field?
I suppose I see a tension between “outreach only to the best” and generally walking away from outreach. E.g. do the fellowships seem like a reasonable bet to you now that they’re super competitive and raising their bar, or are they still too general in scope and we should instead be doing something like running an exclusive side event at NeurIPS?
Put more succinctly: should we be raising the bar for the quality of talent reached, or working to pivot outreach to those who already show strong signs of success in relevant fields?
Helpful updates though, thanks for taking the time to share them.
I’d fund Apart Research significantly less (maybe $50k?) and not fund the debate (also because I’ve updated away from public outreach as a valuable strategy).
What caused this update? Perhaps I just need to listen to the talk linked below it, but would be interested if you had any more pointed thoughts to share.
Anytime, thanks to you for your own words :)
I make a similar point in my piece about the overfocus on research, arguing for increased focus on advocacy rather than protesting specifically.
Really well written and compelling Sam.
The website appears to be down.
For the discussion, how long would you present for, and then how long would you give each 1-on-1 interaction before rotating?
Was the Rockefeller Guide (Gather) worth reading? I think this is the updated version.
What sort of things did the AIS group do that gave the impression they were taking ideas more seriously? Was it more events surrounding taking action (e.g. Hackathons)? Members engaging more with the ideas in the time outside of the club meetings? More seriousness in reorienting their careers based on the ideas?
Thank you Toby, really heartening to see it valued.