This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
An awful lot of ea people argue that not giving money now is better if they can leverage it into obscene wealth and donate more in the future. The thing is, you can continue justifying not giving using that equation unto perpetuity.
It's a cool trick.
Source?
Scott keeps talking about things, like the Giving What We Can Pledge, which are designed to counteract this exact failure mode. I expect that a random EA is more likely to give than a random American, let alone a random investor.
My brother in Christ, we are in a thread about Sam Bankman Fried, Caroline Ellison, and the fallout of FTX and you are asking for a source?
How about William McAskill, in his paper Investing to Give?
There's also Sam Harris and Sam Bankman Fried in Sam Harris' podcast.
Ellison herself brought it up during her trial.
Even Scott's arguments against it are lukewarm at best, and he accepts it as a valid practice. The giving pledge is Earning to Give in drag. It's the same mechanics - defer giving for an extended period of time under the nebulous promise that it will do more good in the long run. The giving pledge it simply says that your kids don't get to keep up the grift forever. That doesn't matter much. In the long run, we're all dead.
You can argue that I may have been imprecision in my terminology, but "perpetuity" vs an "entire human lifespan" feels like a distinction without a difference.
Yes, I’m asking for a source. The biggest, most dramatic scammer in the movement doing something does not imply an “awful lot.”
I couldn’t find a talk or paper called Investing to Give. I did see this proposed framework, which doesn’t give a single threshold, and this, where he talks about the theory. But I also note that this guy donates all income past $32,000. It sure sounds like this guy is giving and not just earning.
The baseline level of charity for an American is less than $1300. I’m pretty sure that’s an average, too, and I expect the median is much lower. I am confident that EAs, as a group which self-selects for neurotically caring about this stuff, clear that bar.
Sorry - I was wrong on my title. I was working from memory while on mobile. I'm back at my desk now.
The actual paper is "When should an effective altruist donate", from 2019, by William MacAskill, published by the global priorities institute. He establishes a proposed mathematical framework that determines whether to donate now or later (page 14 of the PDF). Reading through his own definitions above, he sets it up so that it's almost always beneficial to give later. Take the "Values" section. He explicitly state that values are unlikely to change over time. I find that just as unlikely as he finds it likely.
On a deeper note, this goes back to a problem I have with utilitarianism in general and effective Altruism in particular. I used to hang out with some effective Altruists. I also volunteer at an animal shelter, doing unglamorous work that most volunteers don't particularly want to do. My EA acquaintances mocked me for that choice, and earnestly argued that I would be better off quitting my job, moving to a HCoL area, getting paid "what I (was) really worth", then donating back to the animal shelter in question to hire somebody else to "do that kind of work".
I don't talk to them much anymore. I'm still disinfecting ringworm and mending fences at the animal shelter, and they're donating to groups like METR, because that will allegedly do more good than anything I'm doing.
That's the kind of unconsciously classist/condescending attitude that annoys me in EA discourse about the most effective and rational way to donate, and where the people involved would be highly insulted if you flat-out told them they think they are a superior class/caste of people and the lower orders are merely there to do the dirty work. But "hire someone of less value than you to shovel the shit out of the cages" is precisely that attitude at work. Manual labour is not worth much, even if we need it, because it is low paid (and besides soon we'll have robots to do it, so all the manual workers can... evaporate into thin air? get UBI and become creative artists? go back home to Central and South America?)
Exactly how do you think we should determine what something is worth then? Labor theory of value?
If the work stopped being done for a week, how badly would that inconvenience you?
I have a feeling a lot more people would be inconvenienced by "they didn't renew the cleaning contract" than "oh no the person using AI to vibecode SEO was out sick all week!"
But if the guy doing your SEO was away for months or longer, you would probably observe a drop in your sales that could make a buildup of carpet lint look like very small potatoes, and your janitor might be the first to be let go.
IT doesn't operate on an urgent timescale and before FAANG it was underfunded for that reason, but it absolutely matters.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link