zchuang

Karma: 795

zchuang May 13, 2023, 3:12 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
This is not how words work. You can’t just say I believe X is a virtue because in humanitarian ethics (which is ill-defined). I truly don’t think you understand the concept of virtue ethics at the end of the day. This sounds mean by it’s definitionally a misunderstanding you keep doubling down on like everything here. For instance you tried to use the red cross as an example but most virtue ethicists wouldn’t abide by an entity holding a virtue (the ICRC can’t cultivate a virtue it’s not a person) -- because that’s definitionally not what a virtue is. You also misquoted Alasdair McIntyre and misrepresented it as shown by the fact your quoting all come from google book snippets from undergraduate classes.
I think you believe what you believe and I’ll leave it at that. This is not a productive conversation. Funnily enough I do not think the paper draft is charitable but I don’t think you fully understand your axiomatic values (you probably are prioritarian not a virtue ethicist). I also think the educating girls example is a very strong prioritarian argument.
[edited for tone]

zchuang May 13, 2023, 8:43 AM
−4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
Ok to be clear, I am 100% certain you don’t know what virtue ethics is because you’re literally describing principles of action not virtues. Virtues in virtues ethics are dispositions we cultivate in ourselves not in the consequence of the world. So taking your example of the “principle of impartiality” is that if you are a virtue ethicist you’re trying to cultivate “impartiality” not duty bound by it. This is also why you’re confused when you name virtues because independence is a virtue in the person receiving aid not in you! Also these are canonically not virtues any well-known virtue ethicist would name!
Moreover, this impartiality is more a metaethical principle that you keep violating in your own examples. If Oxfam trades off 2:1 Bangladeshis to South Sudanese (replace the countries with whatever you want) that breaks impartiality because you are necessarily saying one life is worth more than another (there are morally particular facts that can change this obviously but you keep biting the bullet on any and just say the world is fuzzy!)
Overall, the world is fuzzy but the problem in this chain of logic is your fuzziness in understanding of what commonly used concepts like virtue ethics are. It’s really frustrating when you keep excusing your mistaken understanding of concepts with the world being fuzzy. Please just go read Alastair McIntyre’s After Virtue.

zchuang May 13, 2023, 5:21 AM
3 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
I think the problem is actually reversed. Most humanitarian organisations do not have firm foundational beliefs and are about using poverty porn and feelings of the donor to guide judgements. The language you use of the value of “humanity” is a non-sequitur and doesn’t provide information—even those with high status in humanitarian aid circles like Rory Stewart express a lot of regret over this fuzziness. Put sharply, I don’t think contemporary humanitarianism has language to describe itself accurately and “humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence” are not values but rather buzzwords for charity reports and pamphlets.
From what I’ve inferred is that you’re some sort of Bernard Williams type moral particularism instead of virtue ethics in that you think there are morally salient facts everywhere on the ground in these cases and that the configuration of the morally relevant features of the action in a particular context. But the problem in this discourse is you won’t name the thing you’re defending because I don’t think you know what exactly your moral system is beyond being against thought experiments and vibes of academic philosophy.

zchuang May 13, 2023, 2:44 AM
2 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
Also to be clear, “humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence” aren’t values as most philosophers know of them. Neutrality and impartiality are not ones you seem to defend above which is why people find you to be confused.

zchuang May 12, 2023, 12:59 PM
1 point
1 ∶ 0
on: I want to read more stories by and about the people of Effective Altruism
I adore Claire Zabel’s impossible EA emotions.

zchuang May 12, 2023, 12:07 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 1
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
I think what you’re saying. There are a plurality of values that EAs don’t seem to care about that are deeply important and are skipped over through naive utilitarianism. These values cannot be measured through cost-effectiveness because they are deeply ingrained in the human experience.
The stronger version that I think you’re trying to elucidate but are unable to clearly is that cost-effectiveness can be inversely correlated with another value that is “more” determinant on a moral level. E.g. North Koreans cost a lot more to help than Nigerians with malaria but their cost effectiveness difficulty inheres in their situation and injustice in and of itself.
What I am saying is that insofar as we’re in the realm of charity and budgets and financial tradeoffs it doesn’t matter what your intrinsic value commitments are. There are choices that produce more of that value or less of that value which is what the concept of cost effectiveness is. Thus, it is a crux no matter what intrinsic value system you pick. Even deontology has these issues which I noted in my first response to you.

zchuang May 12, 2023, 11:43 AM
1 point
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in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
Wait I just want to make an object level objection for the third party readers that most policy-making is guided by cost-benefit analysis and the assigning of value of statistical life (VSL) in most liberal democracies.

zchuang May 12, 2023, 11:23 AM
0 points
0 ∶ 1
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
Reasons why you can’t reject the premise:
1. Trade-offs inhere in all ethical systems so “rejecting utilitarianism” doesn’t do the work you think it does. The values you listed up in the thread that “inhere” in
2. The actual premise you’re you’re rejecting is one you rely on, that of equal moral consideration of peoples. Each time you manipulate the ratio of tradeoff by rejecting “cost-effectiveness” you are breaking treating people as morally equivalent.
Reasons you actually can reject the premise:
1. Actions that are upside bargains. E.g. break the trade off by having both options done but this is not the nature of aid as it currently is.
I think what you think you’re doing by saying you’re not a utilitarian is saying that you care about things EAs don’t care about in the impact of aid. But even with other values you create different ratios of trade offs and Pareto Optimality such that you’re always trading off something even if it’s not utilitarianism. It’s still something that is a cost and something that is a benefit. There’s no rhetorical trick here just the fungible nature of cash. The fact that cost effectiveness isn’t an intrinsic value is what makes it a deciding force in the ratio of trade offs in other values.

zchuang May 12, 2023, 1:44 AM
5 points
3 ∶ 2
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
Just because you’re not a utilitarian doesn’t mean you can reject the premise of the question. Deontologists have the same problem with trade offs! The premise of the question is one even the Oxfam report accepts. I also don’t think you know what an instrumental value is. I think you keep throwing the term out but don’t understand what it means in terms of how it is frames the instrumental empirical question in a way that other values dissolve.

zchuang May 11, 2023, 3:40 PM
5 points
2 ∶ 1
in reply to: Paul Currion’s comment on: Why Not EA? [paper draft]
I don’t think you’re understanding what EAs truly object to though. If the problem is the moral arbitrariness and moral luck of South Sudan vs. Bangladesh then you end up having to prioritise. EA works on the margins so the argument conditionally breaks at the point quantity has a quality all of its own.
If borders and the birth lottery are truly arbitrary I don’t understand why it would be so bad to “abandon” a country if there are equally needs for kids of each country. In the same way typical humanitarians are ok with donations moved from the first world to the developing world.
To put inversely your example, the argument that justifies funding every single country because they are distinct categories also justifies abandoning 1000 children in one country for 100 children in another country. If anything your example weighs on the fact South Sudan and Bangladesh feel worthy on both ends so it feels intuitive. But the categories of countries themselves are wonderfully arbitrary, South Sudan did not exist until 2011!
Moreover, I wish you defended another intrinsic value that could be isolated away from cost-effectiveness. Is it a desserts claim that the most difficult places to administer aid are also the most “needy” and therefore deserve it more even if it costs more?

zchuang May 11, 2023, 3:17 AM
7 points
1 ∶ 0
on: zchuang’s Shortform
I wonder if anyone has moved from longtermist cause areas to neartermist cause areas. I was prompted by reading the recent Carlsmith piece and Julia Wise’s Messy personal stuff that affected my cause prioritization.

zchuang May 10, 2023, 6:36 PM
1 point
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in reply to: JP Addison🔸’s comment on: JP’s Shortform
I feel like non-obvious is very load bearing here because my first thought is Joseph Bazalgette and the London Sewer system.

zchuang May 10, 2023, 1:03 PM
1 point
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in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: zchuang’s Shortform
But that’s conditional on people not interpreting the hugboxing as a tactic/weird norm. E.g. mormon missionaries being nice to people doesn’t elicit the same response as a person off the street because they adjust their set point.

zchuang May 9, 2023, 3:49 AM
1 point
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on: An experiment eliciting relative estimates for Open Philanthropy’s 2018 AI safety grants
Sorry but the squiggle link doesn’t work in footnote 4. I’d like to replicate it in a different colour just to look at graph properly.

zchuang May 8, 2023, 3:32 PM
1 point
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in reply to: JP Addison🔸’s comment on: zchuang’s Shortform
Here I’ll illustrate the problem with your viewpoint on the ambiguity problem I have. Just going to spitball a bunch of problems I end up asking myself.
1. If I’m steelmanning the viewpoint:
  1. I’d be defending how this bundle of reasons leads to the conclusion. Conceptually easy and normal steelmanning.
  2. I’d provide strong evidence for each claim and my burden would be showing how load bearing of a claim and how it’s mistaken or how it could reasonably come to be.
2. If I’m steelmanning a world view I’d be defending something like this follows:
  1. Am I defending the modal reasoning of the viewpoint holder across a population or the top reason holder (e.g. the average deontologist or Korsgaard?)
  2. Am I defending the top world view holder in the eyes of the steelman opponent or in some objective modal observer (e.g. if I’m saying p(doom) = 90% is wrong do you want me to Paul Christiano’s viewpoint or Yann LeCunn’s)
    Subquestion here is do you want some expected value calculus of: change from base opinion * likelihood to change opinion.
3. If I’m steelmanning assumptions:
  1. Do you want the assumptions to line up with the opposing viewpoint such that the criticism of assumptions dissolves?
  2. Do you want me to make explicit the assumptions and provide broad reasons for them?
4. Are you steelmanning a specific reason:
  1. E.g. for steelmanning bioanchors we could decompose it down to inputs, probability distribution problems, forecasting certainty. Each of these argues from an external or internal frame of the bioanchors report and shows differing levels of understanding—especially because they’re interlinked. For instance, if you wanted a steelman of long-timelines|fast take off you end forcing a hardware overhang argument.
5. Are you steelmanning a reconstruction:
  1. Arguments often exist in chains of argumentation so steelmans that isolate and so a reconstructive defence of an argument that asks for a steelman is often decontextualised and confused.
Overall, I think a large part of the problem is the phrase “what is your steelman” being goodharted in the same way “I notice I’m confused” is where the original meaning is loss in a miasma of eternal September.

zchuang May 8, 2023, 2:33 PM
9 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Chris Leong’s comment on: zchuang’s Shortform
I think an inviting form of decoupling norms where it’s fractured in chains. I don’t think decoupling norms work when both parties don’t opt-in and so people should switch to the dominant norm of the sphere. An illustrative example is as follows:
1. EAs try to avoid being persuasive and be explanatory and thus do not engage within the frame of opponents for fear of low fidelity. E.g. Will Macaskill sweatshop discourse about impermissibility and instead contest the claim on the metaethical level.
2. EAs then respond that utilitarianism is true and people aren’t engaging or justifying on the comparative (which is a category mistake about morality for a deontologist) and act as if the critic was non-responsive (the Chappell thread comes to mind).
  1. I will note this is a special case in which many EA critics don’t want to re-litigate the utilitarianism vs. deontology discourse but want to articulate the side constraint violation and inform others of that thinking in EA.
3. The critic feels misunderstood because the EAs are very nice and say they’re really happy the critic is here but the critic doesn’t feel actually heard because the criticism wasn’t really responded to but EAs say nice words of praise.
4. In turn the critic continues on the same chain of logic that EAs have not sharpened and pushed towards the true crux.
Some EAs would see this as being a motte-and-bailey instead of getting to the crux but cruxes can be asymmetric in that different critics combine claims together (e.g. the “woke” combining with more centrist sensibilities deontologists). But I think explanations which are done well are persuasive because they reframe truth-seeking ideas within accessible language that dissolve cruxes to seek agreement and cooperation.
Another illustration on the macro-level of the comparative:
1. Treat critics well on the resource and out of argumentative level such that the asymmetric resources of EA don’t come to bear.
2. Make sure you are responsive to their concerns and use reasoning transparency. Instead of saying, “thanks for responding and being a critic” and leaving it there actually engage forcefully with the ideas and then thank them for their time.
3. The core problem right now is that EAs lead with being open to change their mind which sets up discourse for failure because when EAs don’t change their minds the critics feel misled.
To be clear, there are harms with trying to be persuasive (e.g. sophistry, lying, motivated reasoning etc.). But sometimes being persuasive is about speaking the argumentative language of another side.

zchuang May 7, 2023, 11:01 PM
7 points
3 ∶ 0
in reply to: Sanjay’s comment on: Integrating the PACS Institute into the Effective Altruism Movement: Seeking Reflections and Advice
Yeah, I strong downvoted because the post doesn’t explain what the institute actually does but instead tries to pull public quotes of EAs and try to shoe horn said quotes into PAC Institute. The website is also very opaque. I feel like I got further away from understanding what peace engineering was while reading this post. The money thing I presumed more was an inelegant turn of phrase on the part of the author but did play a part in downvoting.

zchuang May 7, 2023, 6:03 AM
5 points
1 ∶ 0
on: zchuang’s Shortform
I think the model of steelmanning EAs have could borrow from competitive debating because it seems really confused as a practice and people mean different things for steelmanning:
1. Are you steelmanning a whole viewpoint?
2. Are you steelmanning a world view so a combination of bundled viewpoints?
3. Are you steelmanning the ideological or memetic assumptions?
4. Are you steelmanning a warrant (a reason for a belief)?
5. Are you steelmanning reconstruction (why criticisms of an argument are wrong)?
I might write about this as a bundle but this imprecision has been bothering me.

zchuang May 6, 2023, 7:37 PM
42 points
15 ∶ 1
on: zchuang’s Shortform
I fear the weird hugbox EAs do towards their critics in order to signal good faith means over time a lot of critics just end up not being sharpened in their arguments.
What links here?
- quinn's comment on Ingroup Deference by trammell (May 26, 2023, 11:03 PM; 12 points)
- quinn's comment on Grumpy Squid’s Quick takes by Grumpy Squid (Sep 6, 2023, 11:02 PM; 11 points)

zchuang May 6, 2023, 6:57 PM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: zchuang’s Shortform
One thing that bothers me about epistemics discourse is that there’s this terrible effect of critics picking weak low status EAs as opponents for claims about AI risk and then play credentialism games. I wish there was parity matching of claims in these discussions so they wouldn’t collapse.