Victor-SB

• Victor-SB 26 May 2026 11:06 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: EA sex­ual ha­rass­ment: Where’s the ev­i­dence we’re worse than baseline?

  If someone wrote a piece about a charity and this was the response—ill-defined methodological criticisms which aren’t followed up but are then repeatedly referenced, requests for the piece to be presented differently, implications about the author’s intent, multiple disagreeing viewpoints on why the piece is bad, claims that the piece is both wrong and that the central point is anodyne—do you think you’d think that was the fault of the author, or would you think there was something else going on.

  First of all, thank you for your thought experiment; I think it’s a good approach.

  However, when constructing a thought experiment (or a comparison) intended to highlight a lack of consistency, for it to be relevant, it must have the same mechanics and/​or structure as the subject of the discussion, thereby highlighting a difference in treatment (i.e., an inconsistency or a “double standard”).

  Why is structure important, in my view?
  Because otherwise, taking it to the extreme, one could also say, “Someone spoke a sentence last time and you didn’t react the same way, yet in both cases they are sentences.” ; here the comparison is flawed as a way to point out an inconsistency because the relevant level of structure is not “a sentence”; one must move to a richer level of structure to characterize the phenomenon and then point out the supposed inconsistency.

  From my perspective, the key structure is as follows:

  1. An internal article within an organization, intended for its members and discussing its management (related to point 4)

  2. An article that highlights significant ethical conduct in a type of action carried out by the organization’s members and/​or structures

  3. An article that compares the organization’s operations to those of other organizations.

  4. An article that expresses ambiguity on the subject: “So, ultimately, it’s okay; there’s no reason to say it’s terrible—we’re not doing much worse than others on this issue (point 2)”
     

  We can discuss the structure I’m proposing, but this is currently how I see the relevant structure for comparison.

  For example, an important moral issue might be veganism at group meals: I don’t know if I expect it to be well received. (Actually, I know I’m pretty sure it won’t be.)
  Or racism, or accessibility for people with disabilities, or managing the spread of an epidemic, etc.

  I can’t imagine a very warm reception in any of these cases, and in each case the problem seems to me to be structurally the overlap between 2 and 4 (requiring 1 and 3 to function—that’s why they’re there).

  Even though, as I said, I find the question interesting, and I believe I have addressed the substance of it in my previous comment.
  But addressing the substance doesn’t preclude elaborating on the form as well; this is relevant insofar as it concerns something real that will have a significant impact.

• Victor-SB 25 May 2026 23:45 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: My Cur­rent Solu­tion to the Repug­nant Conclusion

  Thank you so much for sharing this article; I really enjoy reading about social ethics in general.

  To begin with, I think one should relativize “Repugnant Conclusion” to a system of population ethics: here, sum utilitarianism (classical, unweighted, etc.)
  Moreover, there are several possible repugnant conclusions, even for a single system of population ethics.

  I agree with this (as can be seen in what I develop further below with the $S_d$):

  Now, I should very clear on what, exactly, my favored solution entails. My favored solution doesn’t exactly entail that there is some pair of worlds <w1, w2> in the sequence where, no matter how small the difference in intensity between w1 and w2, adding more people to w2 could never outweigh w1. What it entails is that, for any real number d, there has to be a pair of worlds <w1, w2> in the sequence where the difference in intensity between w1 and w2 is d, and no matter how many more people are in w2, w2 could never outweigh w1. That’s still really weird though!

  But I would say that I do not see a reason (I may be overlooking an aspect, of course) to conclude this (if the definition is absolute) :

  What this means is there is some population, say, K, where there are lots of people living pretty-good lives, and if you were to lower the level of well-being in K by even a little bit (like, 0.0000000000000000000000001%) no matter how many more people you added, that would never be better than K.

  and same :

  To put it in terms of pain: if K is a world where 10000000000 people are experiencing a pain of level p, K is worse than a world where 50 TRILLION TIMES as many people are experiencing a pain that is 99.999999999% as intense as p. That’s pretty nuts!! If the level of pain is only slightly less intense, you presumably shouldn’t allow 50 trillion times as many people to experience pain, even if it is a slightly less intense pain. But that’s what my favored solution entails.

  To make my point of view clearer I will try to distinguish several things by taking up the definitions given (generalizing a few points slightly):

  Framework and definitions

  Let $W$ be a set of possible worlds, equipped with a preference relation $\succ$ (“is better than”, or “is less bad than” in the case of suffering). Each world $X\in W$ is characterized by a number of people $n\left(X\right)\in N^{\ast }$ and a welfare level $l\left(X\right)\in R_{>0}$ (or a suffering level $s\left(X\right)\in R_{>0}$, where a larger value means more intense suffering).

  Trade-off principles (inspired by what Dagher says)

  Definition. For $d\in (0,1)$:

  Trade Small-Quality for Big-Quantity (welfare) for d ($\text{TradeWelfare}\left(d\right)$): For any population $X$, and any natural $n$, real $l$, such that $X$ has $n$ people each enjoying welfare level $l$, there is an all-things-considered better population $X^{\ast }$ of $m>n$ people each enjoying welfare level $(1-d)l$.

  Formally: $\text{TradeWelfare}\left(d\right):\forall X\in W,\exists X^{\ast }\in W\text{such that}n\left(X^{\ast }\right)>n\left(X\right),l\left(X^{\ast }\right)\le (1-d)\cdot l\left(X\right),\text{and}{X}^{\ast }\succ X$.

  Definition. For $d\in (0,1)$:

  Trade Big-Quantity for Big-Intensity (suffering) for d ($\text{TradeSuffering}\left(d\right)$): For any population $X$, and any natural $n$, real $s$, such that $X$ has $n$ people each suffering at level $s$, there is an all-things-considered better population $X^{\ast }$ of $m<n$ people each suffering at level $(1+d)s$.

  Formally:$\text{TradeSuffering}\left(d\right):\forall X\in W,\exists X^{\ast }\in W\text{such that}n\left(X^{\ast }\right)<n\left(X\right),s\left(X^{\ast }\right)\ge (1+d)\cdot s\left(X\right),\text{and}{X}^{\ast }\succ X$

  .

  Blocking sets

  Definition. For $d\in (0,1)$, one defines the sets of worlds that block the trade-offs of $d$:

  $S_d^{\text{wel}}=\{X\in W:\forall X^{\ast }\text{with}n(X^{\ast })>n(X\left)\text{and}l\right(X^{\ast })\le (1-d)\cdot l(X),X^{\ast }\nsucc X\}$

  $S_d^{\text{suf}}=\{X\in W:\forall X^{\ast }\text{with}n(X^{\ast })<n(X\left)\text{and}s\right(X^{\ast })\ge (1+d)\cdot s(X),X^{\ast }\nsucc X\}$

  $S_d^{\text{wel}}$ is the set of worlds such that, for the reduction factor d, no increase in population produces a better world.$S_d^{\text{suf}}$ is the analogue for suffering: the worlds for which concentrating the suffering on fewer people (with an increase in intensity of $d$) does not produce a less bad world.

  One thus has :

  $\neg \text{TradeWelfare}\left(d\right)⟺S_d^{\text{wel}}\ne \varnothing$

  $\neg \text{TradeSuffering}\left(d\right)⟺S_d^{\text{suf}}\ne \varnothing$

  Repugnant Conclusions

  Definition. For the classical Repugnant Conclusion (${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$), I propose the following definition :
  For any world $X_0$ of $n_0$ people at welfare level $l_0$, there exists a world $X^{\ast }$ with an arbitrarily large number of people at welfare level arbitrarily close to zero, such that $X^{\ast }\succ X_0$.

  Definition. For the dual Repugnant Conclusion (${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$), I propose the following definition :
  For any world $X_0$ of $n_0$ people suffering at intensity $s_0$, there exists a world $X^{\ast }$ with a very small number of people suffering at arbitrarily large intensity, such that $X^{\ast }\succ X_0$ (i.e., $X^{\ast }$ is “less bad” than $X_0$). In other words, a small number of people in extreme torture is preferable to an astronomical number of people undergoing slight suffering.

  ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ as a consequence of $\text{TradeWelfare}\left(d\right)$

  Proposition. If $\text{TradeWelfare}\left(d\right)$ is true for a certain $d\in (0,1)$ (that is, if $S_d^{\text{wel}}=\varnothing$) and if $\succ$ is transitive, then ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ follows.

  Proof. Let $X_0$ be a world of $n_0$ people at welfare level $l_0$. By iterated application of $\text{TradeWelfare}\left(d\right)$, one constructs a sequence $(X_k{)}_{k\ge 0}$ such that:

  • $n\left(X_k\right)$ is strictly increasing in $N^{\ast }$, hence $n\left(X_k\right)\to +\infty$;

  • $l\left(X_k\right)=(1-d{)}^k\cdot l_0\to 0$ as $k\to +\infty$;

  • $X_0\prec X_1\prec X_2\prec \cdots$ by transitivity.

  One thus obtains a world $X_N$ (for $N$ sufficiently large) with an arbitrarily large number of people at welfare level arbitrarily close to zero, and $X_N\succ X_0$. This is ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$. $\square$

  The factor $4$ and the value ${10}^{-6}$ used by Dagher are illustrative choices.
  The argument works for any $d\in (0,1)$ and any population growth factor, since a strictly increasing sequence in $N$ necessarily diverges.

  ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$ as a consequence of $\text{TradeSuffering}\left(d\right)$

  Proposition. If $\text{TradeSuffering}\left(d\right)$is true for a certain $d\in (0,1)$ and if $\succ$ is transitive, then ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$ follows.

  Proof. Let $X_0$ be a world of $n_0$ people suffering at intensity $s_0$.
  By iterated application of $\text{TradeSuffering}\left(d\right)$, one constructs a sequence $(X_k{)}_{0\le k\le n_0-1}$such that:

  • $n\left(X_k\right)$ is strictly decreasing in $N^{\ast }$, until reaching 1;

  • $s\left(X_k\right)=(1+d{)}^k{s}_0$, which grows exponentially;

  • $X_0\prec X_1\prec X_2\prec \cdots$ by transitivity.

  Contrary to the welfare case, the sequence is necessarily finite (a strictly decreasing sequence in $N^{\ast }$ reaches 1 in at most $n_0-1$ steps).
  But this suffices: if $n_0$ is very large and $s_0$ very small (an astronomical number of people undergoing pinpricks), the final world has a single person suffering at intensity $(1+d{)}^{n_0-1}{s}_0$, which can be arbitrarily large.
  ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$ asserts that this world of a single person (or very few people) in extreme torture is “less bad” than the initial world of billions of “pinpricks” (very little pain). $\square$

  Blocking ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ and ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$: ($\star$) vs ($\star \star$)

  To avoid ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ and ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$, it is necessary that $S_d^{\text{wel}}\ne \varnothing$ and $S_d^{\text{suf}}\ne \varnothing$ for all $d$.
  These are the necessary conditions:

  $\forall d\in (0,1),S_d^{\text{wel}}\ne \varnothing \left({\star }_{\text{wel}}\right)$

  $\forall d\in (0,1),S_d^{\text{suf}}\ne \varnothing \left({\star }_{\text{suf}}\right)$

  It seems to me that Dagher asserts that denying ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ and ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$ necessarily leads to stronger conditions : the existence of worlds that belong to all the $S_d^{\text{wel}}$ (resp. $S_d^{\text{suf}}$) simultaneously:

  ${\bigcap }_{d\in (0,1)}{S}_d^{\text{wel}}\ne \varnothing (\star {\star }_{\text{wel}})$

  ${\bigcap }_{d\in (0,1)}{S}_d^{\text{suf}}\ne \varnothing (\star {\star }_{\text{suf}})$

  A world in ${\bigcap }_d{S}_d^{\text{wel}}$ is a world whose welfare level cannot be reduced by any amount, however small, without the result being recoverable by adding people.
  A world in ${\bigcap }_d{S}_d^{\text{suf}}$ is a world such that, however small the increase in intensity, no reduction in the number of people produces a less bad world.
  These are the worlds that Dagher calls “K”, it seems to me (whether it concerns wel or suf).

  $(\star )$ does not imply $(\star \star )$

  I would be inclined to say this: $(\star \star )\Rightarrow (\star )$, but $(\star )\nRightarrow (\star \star )$.

  For the implication $(\star \star )\Rightarrow (\star )$ :
  If $K\in {\bigcap }_d{S}_d^{\text{wel}}$, then in particular $K\in S_d^{\text{wel}}$ for each $d$, hence $S_d^{\text{wel}}\ne \varnothing$.

  For the non-implication $(\star )\nRightarrow (\star \star )$:
  A decreasing intersection of non-empty sets can be empty (a priori).
  Perhaps an additional argument makes the implication true, but I have not found one for the moment.

  Consequence: the results about an absolute K do not seem necessary

  The consequences that Dagher presents as inevitable, the existence of a world $K\in {\bigcap }_d{S}_d^{\text{wel}}$ such that a reduction in welfare of 0.0000000000000000000000001% (implicitly, arbitrarily small) can never be compensated by any number of people, rest on $(\star \star )$, not on $(\star )$. (From my current perspective)

  Note: maybe from the start Dagher meant a $K_d$ in $S_d$ (for a specific $d$)? But the wording really seems to set an arbitrary threshold after defining K, so it gives the impression that it’s absolute?

  Now, to block ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$, only $\left({\star }_{\text{wel}}\right)$ is necessary.

  $\left({\star }_{\text{wel}}\right)$ admits models in which:

  • For each fixed $d$, $S_d^{\text{wel}}\ne \varnothing$: there exist worlds that block the transitive chain for that d;

  • But $S_d^{\text{wel}}$ “shrinks” as $d\to 0$, and ${\bigcap }_{d>0}{S}_d^{\text{wel}}=\varnothing$: no world plays the role of an absolute threshold.

  In other words, the “absolute K” result is the price to pay for $(\star {\star }_{\text{wel}})$, not for the rejection of ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ itself.
  One can reject ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ by accepting only $\left({\star }_{\text{wel}}\right)$, which is logically weaker and does not seem to lead to the same counterintuitive consequences. (I might be wrong)
  The same reasoning applies to ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$ with $\left({\star }_{\text{suf}}\right)$ and $(\star {\star }_{\text{suf}})$.

  Remark on $\text{TradeSuffering}\left(d\right)$ and $\text{TradeWelfare}\left(d\right)$:

  It seems to me that what leads to the different $RC$ outcomes is that $d$ is ‘fixed’, chosen in advance for the $X$s in question.
  However, varying $d$ at each stage, and thus potentially accepting the proposal in each world but for a $d$ specific to that world, might not result in the $RC$ outcomes.
  A position where the trade-off is accepted at each step, but with a non-uniform $d_k$ that depends on the step $k$ (or on the world $X_k$).
  In that case, the total distance traversed in the intensity spectrum after $N$ steps is governed by the product ${\prod }_{k=1}^N(1+d_k)$. This product converges to a finite strictly positive limit if and only if $\sum \ln (1+d_k)$ converges, which (for small $d_k$) is equivalent to $\sum d_k<\infty$.
  If this condition is satisfied, the sequence of worlds never traverses the entire spectrum, and neither ${\text{RC}}_{\text{wel}}$ nor ${\text{RC}}_{\text{suf}}$ follows, even though each individual step is accepted.

  (I haven’t really explored this idea much, but that’s what I’m thinking at the moment)

  Just a quick note:

  It seems to me that, broadly speaking, for every element $K_d^{suf}$ in $S_d^{suf}$, we could (not necessarily, but it’s still possible) choose a $d-\epsilon$ with $\epsilon$ arbitrary small and accept the trade (because the suffering is lower), which means there is a sort of “threshold” imposed by $S_d^{suf}$.

  This “threshold” seems reasonable in itself ; I had a hunch about this threshold effect even before thinking it through (for suffering).

  Questions

  The fact that the threshold can be arbitrarily small is indeed surprising, but it doesn’t seem fundamental to me ; but actually, even if it doesn’t seem “fundamental”, I get the impression that’s wrong, wouldn’t we accept just any percentage threshold?
  Then again, I don’t necessarily have a clear idea of what context we’re talking about, so I might change my mind once I have a better understanding of the examples.

• Victor-SB 22 May 2026 10:02 UTC

  7 points

  2 ∶ 2

  on: EA sex­ual ha­rass­ment: Where’s the ev­i­dence we’re worse than baseline?

  If I understand correctly, your question is whether EA is specifically worse than other organisations, rather than whether being on a par with other organisations is also very bad in this regard?
  Because I get the impression that some people simply say that EA is bad, but don’t necessarily rule out the possibility that others are bad too.

  I reckon it might be important to know whether the EA is actually performing worse, so the question does seem important to me, because one of the possible answers would be significant.
  (For example, learning more from organisations that are doing better, etc.)
  Even if everyone is doing very poorly, performing worse than everyone else is still very important information, even if performing just as well is by no means satisfactory.
  I imagine this might be part of your approach?

  For my part, I don’t have enough reliable data to form a proper opinion on this specific issue, and indeed the question seems difficult to answer based on the data: a very high reporting rate compared to others within an organisation could mean that it handles reports much better (in terms of spaces for discussion, reception, listening, procedures, etc.), and so ultimately is a better-run organisation; but the opposite could also be true: it might mean that it performs worse, whilst managing reports in much the same way as others.

  Furthermore, better care, better facilities, a better reporting policy, better responses to these reports, etc., could (in theory) well coincide with an underlying greater tendency to commit assaults. I don’t think these necessarily contradict each other? Even if they might, there may be an argument to be made for that.
  And in that case, identifying the reporting mechanisms would not be enough to reduce the actual number of cases.
  However, in that case, I imagine the number of reports would be particularly high, so it would still serve as a warning.

  I can’t help feeling that these measurement issues are skewing the data in all sorts of ways,
  but I still believe it’s important to make progress on this issue; it’s not a case of saying “we can’t answer” definitively and thus stopping the discussion.

  However, why are you making this post?
  I don’t get the impression you’re creating this post to say “let’s ask ourselves whether EA is worse, because it would be important if it is, and here’s the data I’ve been able to gather so far”, but rather with an idea that strikes me as “hey, it’s not that bad, is it?”^[1], which is completely different and, moreover, isn’t very epistemologically humble given the complexity of the subject regarding the data.

  I also think that’s why there are so many critical comments, because if you’d simply asked a specific comparative question whilst being perfectly clear about your aims and what you meant, I don’t think there would be any such comments, or at least far fewer of them. (I may be wrong; that’s just my current view.)

  Because I’m not sure if you’ve realised that saying ‘others are worse’ or ‘others aren’t any better’ is often used to downplay one’s own behaviour. It’s a very common argument, and your article doesn’t seem at all cautious on this point, for several reasons mentioned here, which personally leads me to believe that this is the underlying motivation. (I may be wrong,I hope so, at least, but I’m mentioning this out of honesty and because I think this information is useful when writing posts.)

  Which in no way detracts from the relevance of the issue (in the event that it is indeed worse).

  1. ^

     the elements in question are: the article’s title and the way it is written, mixing comments that say it’s bad with comments that say it’s worse, even though the two have nothing to do with each other.

• Victor-SB 8 Dec 2025 6:09 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: 3 doubts about veganism

  Thank you for this post, I find it interesting and it ties in with some questions I had already asked myself.

  Firstly, I would say that my reflections have led me to consider a form of opposition between consequentialist veganism and deontological veganism, in the sense that the consequences for animal suffering will most likely remain unchanged if a vegan eats 10g of cheese in a year, or even meat, so for me this should not have much impact from a consequentialist point of view. Of course, this is just an example, and one could argue that doing this, given human psychology (at least mine), greatly increases the likelihood of doing it again because the boundary becomes quite intangible, thereby increasing the consequentialist risk.
  My example is imperfect, but I simply want to point out an idea of consequences, and it seemed relatively relevant to me.

  An analogy I like is that of ecology.
  For example, let’s say we want to have an impact on climate change.
  One approach I like and which seems reasonable to me is to calculate the CO2 equivalent cost of each action likely to have a significant cost and ensure that at the end of the year we are around <2-3 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2eq), or another target if necessary or specific.
  This could also include donations to high-impact organisations, as mentioned in this comment, even if this becomes more difficult to quantify.

  A conceptual way of approaching this for veganism, because unfortunately quantifying suffering and the intensity of suffering is a complicated and rather difficult subject, even if I try to approximate it qualitatively, would be to replace the target of [<2-3 tCO2eq/​year] with a target of [less than so much intense animal suffering].
  Unfortunately, without quantification, we cannot do this as neatly, and so a final target is difficult to visualise clearly, but at least as a representation it speaks to me and I try to visualise it.

  This last paragraph leads me to my second point:

  Secondly, this sentence struck me:

  We don’t expect human rights activists to avoid all forms of exploitation and cruelty as far as possible to qualify as human rights activists.

  Because I also had the opposite thought: I find it unfortunate that there is no term to describe trying to be ‘exemplary’ (which could be consequentialist, as mentioned above, so I realise that this is not exactly the idea behind this quote) from a humanitarian point of view.
  We could invent the term ‘hugan’ or ‘ethan’, I don’t know? (Perhaps this already exists and I am not aware of it?)
  And so the idea would also be not to consume products whose production chain involves a lot of human suffering, or to donate to high-impact charities, or other things that do not increase or decrease human suffering in the world.
  And to have a term of identity associated with this, which is rather strict in terms of consequence, which seems to me to be a good idea of the concept of ‘vegan’, if it is made consequentialist.

  
  This kind of ‘an’ concept seems interesting to me for creating a kind of strong behavioural representation on a given cause.

  Another thing I thought about when I read this sentence:

  We’re missing many ideologically aligned people who don’t satisfy the behavioural standard.

  is that there is a word for this, which is ‘anti-speciesist’, I think?

  Perhaps it would be interesting to create notions of intensity? A bit like there are vegetarians and vegans?

[Question] Math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els of Ethics