My point is that this method of reasoning is garbage that only seems useful when you are mind killed.
The specifics hardly matter.
KnotGodel
4mo ago
I wonder if the well funded caravans of migrants we see in some areas of the world have to some extend to do with funding related to EA.
I wonder if your wondering is done in good faith 🤔
Then there is Open A.I. and Chat GPT and effective altruists have been influential in Open A.I. Chat GPT has liberal bias. https://www.foxnews.com/media/chatgpt-faces-mounting-accusations-woke-liberal-bias
I think extremely few people (maybe even no one) pursue making LLMs liberally biased for EA reasons.
Climate change and veganism are two issues that could well lead to hardcore authoritarian policies and restrictions.
Since when has a group representing 3% of the population (vegans) taken enough power to implement "hardcore authoritarian policies and restrictions"?
Like with all identity movements, to elevate one group such as animals you end up reducing the position of another group, such as humans
Only for unhealthy minds, I think? Whether freeing slaves "reduced" the position of non-slaves is a question without an objective answer - only psychological interpretations. For instance, many Indians never eat meat and would tell you they don't feel "reduced" by this.
It does seem that at least a few of the people involved with effective altruism think that it fell victim to its coastal college demographics
That post is just describing regression to the mean, which every informal group encounters. Nothing unique to EA here.
My other conclusion related to the open A.I. incident as well is that the idea of these people that they are those who will put humanity first will lead to them ousting others and attempt to grab more power in the future too. When they do so, will they ever abandon it?
The same could be asked about any group with any large goal: companies, nonprofits, religious organizations. Nothing unique to EA here.
That this action is dishonorable matters
How do we know it is dishonorable?
This means that Sam Altman won't be the first.
won't be the last?
It also means that we got a movement very susceptible to the same problems of authoritarian far left movements in general of extreme self confidence to their own vision and will to power.
Do you have evidence EAs suffer from "extreme self confidence"?
This... encourages the power hungry to be part of it as well.
Again, this isn't unique to EA. Any group with money/power attracts the power hungry. What's your point?
KnotGodel
11mo ago
the problem is most easily solved by forcibly re-educating the peasants to say they love immigration
It's throw-away lines like this that make me avoid commenting here.
Then it's followed up by
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever, while the face says "unlike those intolerant right-wingers, I'm open-minded enough to appreciate boot culture and cuisine!"
Ahh, such steel-manning, such charity - definitely no booing outgroup here!
Your thesis:
The last several years are best modelled as a massive, distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble.
As with all such narratives, this says more about you than the world. You simply focus on all the ways Blues hurt Reds and ignore the millions of boring policy changes where nothing of the sort happens.
This lets your “model” be “correct” since you simply ignore all disagreeing events. For instance, I really don’t see how Biden turning immigrants away at the border is him hurting the Reds or how him sending arms to Ukraine is hurting the Reds or how a boring HOA meeting about lawn care is hurting the Reds.
Then you interpret your own bias as an objective fact of the world, which lets you make fun of people who don’t share that bias by effectively calling them stupid (which is the framing for your entire comment)
Not exactly a paradigm of clear and charitable thinking.
Let me make this very concrete for you
- Everyone complains about things holding them back that aren't there fault.
- It is common practice for this to be a social endeavor, and for people to avoid voicing disagreement, because that is considered anti-social, since people playing the game Poor Old Me generally don't want to play the game everyone here is addicted to: Debate Me
- If I complain I'm not X because I'm an A, and you reply that people who are not-A are also not-X, you haven't actually provided any evidence that the causal claim I was making is false.
- Even the most successful people can correctly point to things that held them back.
In other words, if we apply the standard of discourse used by the OP, we can validly whine about anyone's whining. That standard of discourse is, in a word, shit. It only appeals to people who have been mind-killed.
The specifics about Trump absolutely don't matter. I could point to any person or demographic, and there would be things they whine about holding them back. I could make a post exactly like the OPs regardless of whether those factors had any basis in reality.
I realize this forum is mostly a place to vibe/whine.
Sorry for killing the mood /s
You can't expect absolute neutrality from people at all times
I don't. I expect people to follow the rules such as
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Be Kind
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Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.
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Be charitable.
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Do not weakman in order to show how bad a group is
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Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
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Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
The comment I was responding to violates these. The great grand parent violates these:
Noone needs to face anything, just increasingly automate weapon systems and let the peasants die. If they're not needed and can't use violence to effectively overthrow the system then why would anyone need to pay any attention to them whatsoever?
The forum is replete with obvious violations of the rules. The mods obviously won't mod comments like this, because then they'd be modding like 30% of all the comments here.
But that doesn't mean you should feel discouraged from commenting if you dissent from the consensus view.
Why not? I have better places to discuss topics like this where. I wish this place were better, because then I'd find much more value out of discussing things here, but c'est la vie. [edit: for instance, I found the /r/slatestarcodex threads much more pleasant and insightful]
KnotGodel
4mo ago
What does that mean?... Please be specific.
This is exactly what I wanted him to do, but I was being snarky about it. I'd thank you for being kinder, but...
Have you heard of a guy called "Sam Bankman-Fried?" He was in the news a little bit lately.
A single guy in finance being over-confident is pretty minimal evidence that EAs as a group and as a constellation of organizations suffer from "extreme self confidence".
In your second link, I was responding to someone who was misinterpreting my point, and putting words in my mouth, which I seem to recall is itself against the rules. But whatever, I've reported similarly antagonistic comments with no mod action.
I maintain that this community is mostly rationalized as a place to "debate" and find which ideas survive, while mostly fulfilling the members' needs to vibe/whine - i.e. reinforce that they are smart and everyone else are either idiots or evil. Anyone who hinders this process of self-validation gets downvoted and/or negatively commented on.
For instance, you want to make a completely unsubstantiated partisan quip? 42 upvotes. You respond with actual statistical evidence? 1 upvote. Makes it pretty clear where the priorities of this community are.
That is to say, after many years, I've finally let go of caring about what strangers on an internet forum think about me. In the famous words of Rick Sanchez, "Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer."
KnotGodel
5mo ago
I have the receipts
Those receipts almost perfectly matched the official data.
KnotGodel
3mo ago
- SBF is not the same as either of those. ETA: not to mention the incredible irony, since this website stems from literally the same lineage
- Why does it matter who says the argument?
- Given your bad luck so far, I don’t know why you’re being so picky about where the argument comes from
KnotGodel
4mo ago
I'm saying psychologically health people don't see status as zero-sum.
I don't have to feel like I'm losing status if slaves are freed.
I don't have to feel like I'm losing status if I stop eating meat.
Any feeling that I'm losing status is a feature of my brain, not the world.
KnotGodel
10mo ago
typically outnumber homicides with rifles 2-to-1
Per your same link, "total firearm" homicides outnumber "personal weapons" homicides 14-to-1. You also have to consider denominators. How many times more fistfights happen per year relative to gun fights? That is to say, all things considered, gun fights are probably 2-3 orders of magnitude more lethal than fist fights. Let's not minimize this obvious point.
When you say
Someone commits battery and risks committing murder, but because they haven't (yet?) escalated to a higher probability of death I should be upset that their victim does so first?
If your mode of moral reasoning can justify escalating from ~0.1% fatality risk to a 22% fatality risk under this situation, why not a also accept self-defense escalation to guns if the original fatality risk is 0.01%? 0.001%? If 2-3 orders of magnitude don't convince you, I'm not convinced 4-5 orders of magnitude would convince you, at which point I have to wonder if fatality risk escalation is really the model underlying your beliefs as opposed to, say, honor, fairness, etc.
KnotGodel
1yr ago
The email exchange lasted months. You see clear parts where the CDC pushes back. The CDC ignored the advocates until the White House signal-boosted them. All evidence the CDC isn't biased, and all evidence that literally everyone in this thread besides me is ignoring. It supports the obvious and charitable counter-hypothesis: that the CDC is neutral and, after long and careful deliberation, they believed the new wording is better at communicating the current state of the literature.
So, in order for this to be evidence of leftward bias, someone in this thread is going to need to explain why the change was unreasonable for a neutral CDC and reasonable for a left-biased CDC. I still don't see why this would be the case, so I still maintain this isn't evidence the CDC is left-leaning.
KnotGodel
1yr ago
EA reverses normal concentric loyalties
No, it equalizes them. You can argue that is bad, but it is not "reversed".
Effective charity requires accountability.
The EA movement still is heads-and-shoulders over the average non-EA charity in terms of accountability.
This is why the church was an effective charity - you get free stuff but you also have to behave and participate
This doesn't match my experience with churches at all. For instance, when I volunteered serving dinner and distributing food to the poor, there was literally no effort made to restrict it to good people/the congregation/etc.
Has EA yet to figure out that shipping pallets of rice to Africans only creates more Africans who need even more rice next year?
Has EA ever shipped rice to Africans? Or are you simply straw-manning?
KnotGodel
1yr ago
they are light, not heat
I disagree.
Here are some actual arguments against a LVT:
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A LVT will force people to sell their homes, because people are cash-constrained
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A LVT will force people to sell who have lived somewhere for decades, and the anxiety this creates among everyone (whether or not they are forced to sell) is a huge cost that outweighs the benefits
Arguments like "LVT is equivalent to the state seizing all land, and renting it back at market rates; it's expropriation on a massive scale" are just examples of the worst argument in the world. They're not careful analysis of values or cause-and-effect. They are simply trying to get you to associate the connotations of one idea (the government seizing property) with another (the government taxing property) with no critical analysis of the connection.
For instance, it is plainly obvious that a sales tax on cigarettes is dramatically different than a state seizing all cigarettes. Like, do I even need to state the differences? It is equally obvious that a LVT on a house is different than the government seizing the house - we already impose LVT on houses, we just bundle them with an additional tax on improvements and call it a "property tax".
Argument by analogy is, imo, usually a bad and lazy way to think and write. At best its value is as a brain-storming idea generator; definitely not as a finished thought. Alas, it is also one of the most common ways to "argue" on this very forum.
KnotGodel
1yr ago
I don't see too much in his comment where the language is more inflammatory than the ideas, or where he's mocking people who disagree with his conflict theory take.
Him mocking people is literally making fun of people. That is my criticism...
How much qualification is required?
The reading he claims to prefer makes his entire comment entirely definitional. So, I would like qualification that make his comment both true and not entirely definitional. That is, I'd like his comment to include a meaningful thesis - not a meaningless one.
KnotGodel
1yr ago
They are saying
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Such changes would impact a small number of species
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Such changes are common
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Therefore, this doesn't matter that much.
They even agree that the motivation is "very dumb" and "creates needless work".
You simply rounded their answer to the nearest meme argument (X is unimportant, so why are you complaining) and responded with the appropriate meme response.
Empirical Verification of Sailer’s Law - there is some truth to this "law" (the odds ratio is about 2.4:1) but thinking it is anywhere near conclusive evidence is crazy
but for discouraging murder via a more effective means of self-defense I'm fine with at least a couple orders of magnitude of "more effective"
But, this is an important sticking point. The only way allowing people to escalate from fists to guns reduces overall murder is if the 2-3 OOM increase in lethality is paired with a 2-3 OOM decrease in fist fights. This seems implausible. So, the only plausible conclusion is that a norm of escalating fist fights to gun fights causes a large increase in dead bodies. To me that is a steep price to pay for honor and fairness.
We are both just quibbling about numbers at this point, right?
I don't think when numbers are OOM that you can fairly describe it a "quibbling".
At what point does "if you don't want to face potentially-lethal force, don't start potentially-lethal force" become a more sensible rule than "just shake off the concussion and calculate probabilities", to you?
Definitely not when the expected loss of life is a decade (e.g. 50 years * 22% = 11) versus ~a week (2-3 OOM less). I don't think one man's honor and sense of fairness at a bar one night are worth an expected value loss of a decade of human life. Do you? Do you honestly think the deterrence effect is anything other than a rounding error next to a decade of human life lost in expectation?
optimizing for light over not heat [is the goal]
...
It's obviously making use of cheap rhetoric and Orwell memes
Using cheap rhetoric while making no real argument is, in my mind, the almost the quintessential example of optimizing for heat over light (the anti-goal)
Hypothetical elites who consider the rest of us peasants
Re unkind: yes, and anyone who supports existing politicians. If you tell me my preferred candidate wouldn't care if millions of US citizens die, and that is a purely rhetorical move on your part, I'd call that unkind and needlessly inflammatory.
Re weakmanning: he is weakmanning the memes he's referencing, since Bruce Bueno de Mesquita almost certainly would disagree with his claims. Though, it's hard to say he's even weakmanning, when he has not actually made an argument (again lots of heat in that comment; virtually no light).
I acknowledge that "unkind" and "weakmanning" are not the best fits, but it definitely fails on
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Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.
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Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
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Avoid low-effort participation
I know "Don't boo outgroup" isn't a rule, but imo it should be, and that comment fails that.
But, like you, I view the real problem as a heat-v-light one. Unlike you (I think?), I believe that comment offers approximately 100% heat and approximately 0% light.
Edit: It occurs to me, that perhaps I'm intuitively thinking of this as
heat / (heat + light) < threshold ==> bad
and you're thinking of it is
heat - light < threshold ==> bad
So, to my mind, a comment that makes no real contribution and has some heat, is bad. In your mind (I conjecture), a comment making no contribution is fine so long as its heat is sufficiently low.
This exact point in time is where I've lost all respect for the opinions of people on here as a group - individual users vary.
The guy above literally claims the CDC literally said they made a change to help pass gun control. I ask where they said this. They end up at +18 and I'm at -6, and, as far as I can tell, literally no one in this thread has offered any evidence for their bold claim. I seem to remember a specific rule... what was it again?
Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
So much for evidence and truth-seeking. I remember when I learned new things about the world on this site rather than a simple link aggregation of boo outgroup links with some heavy doses of evidence-free speculation. The standards here are even lower than the mainstream journalists y'all deride. And the bulk of the people here support these shitty discussion norms.
It was fun while it lasted.
Allow me to paraphrase your complaints from the other side of the aisle:
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