domain:freddiedeboer.substack.com
The abrupt end with little chance for handover to a different org/funding source.
How something is ended can matter quite a lot. This was not done gracefully. Or constitutionally, but that's a procedural issue.
I don't think PEPFAR and home construction training programs are a worthwhile comparison.
You really, really don't have to sell me on the downsides of humanitarian interventions as a general rule.
FtSoA
3d ago
My recommendation would be to read the article and view the source cited therein as a good starting point.
Honestly I'm surprised this is something someone wants to contest. Do you have a lot of iced beverages in your part of Europe too?
FtSoA
3d ago
What sounds good vs. what is effective is a common problem, yes.
As a matter of basic logic and follow through, I get a little peeved that if one agrees with the stance that "we, via the coercive power of the state, need to do something" then by god one should make sure it actually is effective. Frequently, this evaluation step is skipped. Homelessness, for example, remains a big problem, and it's typically worse in areas controlled by progressives doing so many things. Just this evening my wife did not want to use our nearby park to put the baby in a swing due to the homeless being all over the playground area (normally they're more broadly dispersed). The city wants to spend millions of dollars on renovating this park but they won't keep the drug-using vagrants away. A homeless man just tried kidnapping a baby out of a stroller at a public transportation station this week, too.
What's funny is that someone like Noah Smith will unironically write that public parks are (in the strict economic sense) public goods. I'd like to show him how easily taxpayer-funded spaces are excludable and rivalrous. Don't even get me started on libraries.
In short, fuck progressivism for being both expensive and ineffective.
magicalkittycat
3d ago
Economically, coercion usually is not very efficient.
Slavery can make sense for the slave owner economically if they have an efficient system for preventing rebellion/runaways/etc or can outsource enforcement to the government or someone else, but yeah the idea of being slavery being efficient overall is something I've never understood. You can beat someone into working a good deal, but getting the best out of them is tough through coercion. Some of the smarter slave owners even realized this and would pay cash incentives (or other similar rewards) to productive slaves. Sometimes they would even rent out their slaves to others and allow the slaves to keep a portion of the earnings!
Slavery starts with a disadvantage to begin with, any system with six people working for their own incentives has a numbers and morale advantage over a system with five workers who gain nothing and one lazy layabout who captures most of the gains for themselves.
Then add on that the market distortions of "free" labor adds less individual incentive for owners to invest in new technology that could clear up the workforce to do other economically productive things for someone else who still needs labor. Why spend hundreds of thousands investing in automation when you have a free work force subsidized by the police state? And yet this automation is what we need, so workers can go do jobs that can't be automated yet.
It's also less efficient at distributing labor, a large slave owning operation is functionally a mini planned economy. The owner says who does what, and while the smaller nature of it compared to a country doesn't make it as inefficient, it still suffers.
That doesn't mean slavery can't and doesn't work, even the worst systems still tend to be a little productive because people are doing labor in them but overall as a society having a bunch of rent seeking middlemen tends to be a drain on growth. We see a similar thing now where some labor markets have an opposite issue, workers/unions have too much power and demand a bunch of busy work like elevator workers literally taking things apart and putting them back together that could be better spent elsewhere growing the economy through labor that is actually needed.
Architects have dreamed of modular construction for decades, where entire rooms are built in factories and then shipped on flatbed trucks to sites, for lower costs and greater precision. But we can’t even put elevators together in factories in America, because the elevator union’s contract forbids even basic forms of preassembly and prefabrication that have become standard in elevators in the rest of the world. The union and manufacturers bicker over which holes can be drilled in a factory and which must be drilled (or redrilled) on site. Manufacturers even let elevator and escalator mechanics take some components apart and put them back together on site to preserve work for union members, since it’s easier than making separate, less-assembled versions just for the U.S.
If slavery is the balance leaning too much towards the employers where they get lazy and inefficient, stuff like this is the balance shifting too much towards workers.
FtSoA
3d ago
I think the typical EA isn't that far off of the typical Western liberal/progressive tradition in terms of their views on human rights?
I'm sure someone somewhere has done polling on this.
I do not believe that Effective Altruists would oppose vaccine mandates categorically under grounds of bodily autonomy, for instance.
Ah well, even my own libertarian instincts allow exceptions for bodily autonomy violations under crisis conditions. No, Covid-19 didn't meet that threshold, but plenty of historic plagues would if we had a modern outbreak. The optimal level of coercion is not zero.
I understand those as fair arguments, but they are the same fair arguments Khrushchev made for Stalin and that Marx made for Guesde.
I very much do not think those are very similar things in kind or scale. To my knowledge, no one in EA leadership was encouraging or validating Ziz or SBF with awareness of their actual behavior/intent and denounced it all upon discovery. Any kind of interesting new ideological movement that grows is at risk of attracting crazies and grifters; what matters is how that's handled and I think at worst EA was fooled by SBF like many others.
Of course. And I denounce them all as capable of the same horrors.
I suppose one can commit to a very, very strong stance on individualism. Are you an anarcho-capitalist?
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
3d ago
(don't ask me why AC units became such pussies lately)
I have been assured by top conspiracist minds that the refrigerant chemical companies ensure their regulatorily captured lawmakers’ outlaw refrigerants as soon as they go out of patent, purely for environmental reasons of course.
Thomas is Orthodox. I believe there isn't a formal Orthodox dogma on this, in the same way as the Catholics, but it would be fair to say that there is a high degree of Orthodox skepticism around IVF and similar technologies. If that piece from 2008 is representative, the attitude seems to be very cautious. They would not support any process that involves destroying or discarding fertilised embryos, but assistive technology in principle is not forbidden. The whole article I linked includes a section noting that the embryo has the ethical rights to its unique human identity, to life, and to eternity and immortality. More pertinently to this subject, Metropolitan Nikolaos writes:
Preimplantation embryo testing is connected with the application of IVF (see e.g. Ehrich et al., 2008). When the aim of testing is therapeutic or preventive intervention, then it is compatible with classic medical perception. However, at present, not only are therapeutic cases very few, but they also carry all related IVF consequences. In fact, when the tests are positive – namely, when a genetic disorder has been diagnosed – the affected embryo will not be transferred. If no unaffected embryos are produced, then the chance of a pregnancy is prevented.
Moreover, preimplantation testing could eventually lead to selection of special traits (e.g. gender, colour of hair or eyes), or even to destruction of embryos bearing undesired traits; consequently, it may generate a eugenic perception of life.
Although preimplantation testing forms a modern diagnostic method that is very promising, the Church ought to maintain Her explicit reservations.
Though I am not Orthodox myself, I am happy to endorse the above position.
He goes on to write:
Undoubtedly, modern technology has greatly contributed to health research and promises even more achievements. This is considered an exceptional blessing from God. Nevertheless, its irrational use threatens to ‘desacralize’ man and treats him as a machine with spare parts and accessories.
Although man regulates technology, he could ultimately be governed by it, unless he is prudent. He may be easily enchanted by technological achievements and, consequently, may become subjugated by them. He risks destroying his own freedom in the name of the freedom of scientific and technological progress that aim at expanding human dominance over nature.
The use of technology and human intervention, to the extent that it safeguards and assists in the sacredness of human fertilization, is not only acceptable but also desirable and pleasing to God. However, technological progress is not considered successful when it imposes choices contrary to nature, affects family unity, interrupts the co-operation of spiritual and natural laws and replaces God. Success is not only the discovery of a new revolutionary technique within the wide context of genetic engineering; it is also the effective confrontation of numerous problems (genetic, psychological, social, ethical, financial, etc.) that emerge from an irrational practice, particularly in the field of invasive fertilization.
The Church is not afraid of changes, neither is She against novel discoveries. Nevertheless, She firmly rejects disrespect for creation and the human person as well as desecration of the institution of family. Fertilization forms the holy altar of life; therefore, entering inside it, requires respect and fear of God.
[...]
The Church embraces pain, illness and disability within the context of man’s fall. At the same time, however, She respects medicine. Although She blesses every ethically acceptable medical human attempt to restore health, She entrusts the final outcome in each different case to God’s love for every person separately. The epitome of Her mentality can be found in the Ecclesiasticus (Book of Sirach, 1952 edition): ‘My son, in thy sickness be not negligent: but pray unto the Lord, and he will thee whole’. She faces everything with patience, humility and faith. She does not differentiate trials from the love of God, but views them as opportunities for salvation and sanctification.
The Church avoids specific rules or excommunications when dealing with bioethical matters, including those concerning assisted reproduction. Basically, She leaves them open, while, at the same time, She indicates the direction and ethos of approaching each specific case. She does give a generalized definition of God’s will, but offers everyone the opportunity to detect it in his or her own life.
This seems well put to me. 17 years since have passed since that was written and today we might wish for a firmer statement, but I think the Catholics have shown the benefits but also the dangers of declaring too many explicit rules too swiftly. For most ethical issues I respect the approach of giving a general direction, and a clear ethical framework, but not presuming to declare the correct action in every individual circumstance.
anti_dan
3d ago
What was needless? PEPFAR can either be cancelled or continued. If it is continued, there is needless suffering on those providing the funds and the marginal increase in prices in paying markets for the drugs. If it is discontinued the people getting the free shit suffer. There is always suffering. The only way you are reducing suffering is if you have an EV+ outcome, like if you teach a guy how to make houses, then he makes a lot of good houses, now he gets money for making houses, other people get houses.
The issue with the house-building-teaching-charity is it isn't scalable. You have to be judicious and wise who you teach to build houses. Not only are there diminishing returns on house-builders in any economy, there also is the issue of many people being unable to learn to be good house builders. So you have to keep your program small and admissions must be selective.
Not just myself, but many have made the criticism that the US federal government is unduly influenced towards defending the political and cultural interests of Jews above and beyond other groups of people, including most notably White Americans.
I myself have pointed to other prominent instances of this, like Jewish groups getting hundreds of millions in handouts from DHS. There's actually been an update to that story recently- the Israel supplemental bill included a $390M increase to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program with $230M available through Sept 30, 2026. Schumer is pushing for an additional $500M bringing potential 2026 funding to $730M. A massive expansion of the program.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3d ago
You need to develop reading comprehension. I cannot stress this enough. There are many things the Israelis can do. I maintain that more diplomacy and less bombing would advance their position in terms of peace and stability. Obviously it wouldn't advance the goal of territorial expansion since diplomacy requires negotiation, give and take. But Israel is a small country, territorial expansion is not sustainable with their resources. Israel only pursuing the 'bomb first, annex later' strategy because the US provides cover from the negative consequences of their strategy, US power is upholding an unnatural, unstable equilibrium.
Your 'solution' is the fastest and surest route to disaster for Israel by torpedoing the source of Israeli strength, American support. Their prior strategy of 'pretending to negotiate, sabotaging negotiations, dividing opponents and then blaming others when the Palestinians don't accept bad terms' worked pretty well, far better than your 'blow everything up and get sanctioned into the ground' approach might.
anti_dan
3d ago
Requiring outside subsidies is an issue because your program turns into a self licking ice cream cone. This seems true for PEPFAR. The purpose of PEPFAR is to keep the people on PEPFAR alive which then demands more money to keep the same people alive in the future. There is no expectation that PEPFAR recipients will erect an anti-retroviral factory anytime soon so they can provide themselves the drugs, nor any other factory that will allow them to be productive enough to actually buy them at market price. The expectation, rather, is this program will be a moneysink for the remainder of my lifetime. This is, of course, a problem with most large charities. Effective charities are almost always more targeted and more discriminatory. An adoption program that places kids with well vetted parents, a financial support network for widows of fallen soldiers and police officers, etc. Such programs are effective in that they are targeted towards an end: creating functional adults who can be independent, positive contributors to society. Public schools are an example of a failed attempt at effective altruism. In theory educating the public could have positive externalities. In practice, they have proven to be moneysinks because the reality of schooling is it is related to, but is not actually education, and human teaching ends up approximating a garbage-in-garbage out model. You can predict the outcomes of an incoming kinder-garden class with fairly good accuracy with just the demographics of the children, while ignoring the teachers almost entirely.
iprayiam3
3d ago
This isn’t about counter factual people. You’re starting with the premise that’s under dispute.
In sumo, can steroids give you an edge? Does anyone do steroids? Any scandals?
iprayiam3
3d ago
This analogy doesn’t make sense. We’re not talking about genetic manipulation, we’re talking about picking which embryo is selected.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
3d ago
Conversely, would a gene pool guided by culture (which is a lot more volatile) not be much more vulnerable to genetic catastrophe?
It's that one Asimov story again, we'd be saving ourselves from one form of entropy only to discover a new one.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
3d ago
Arguably the most luddite guy here busts out a PR to fix a minor site annoyance in a matter of hours. Incredible.
hydroacetylene
3d ago
Your ideal society is western Saudi Arabia?
Lizzardspawn
3d ago
That is a citation needed moment. Source - I am from Europe. AC is quite popular and widespread. And treated as necessity during summer. We just don't try to achieve polar temperatures and usually put it to 20-22 C (don't ask me why AC units became such pussies lately)
‘Not enough power for the Catholic church’ is a baffling criticism of Franco.
Which is why my criticism isn't "not enough power for the Catholic church" so much as "didn't turn the clock back far enough, and in too few areas." As you note, fascism does not have enough staying power; I'd say that's because it's way too modern.
Show me a leader who will give his best efforts to roll back every part of society he can — except science and technology — to before 1500 AD, and that would be a proper reactionary.
Edit: as I've said to people before, most Americans' vision of the "sci-fi far future" looks like Star Trek — ranging from TOS for the Republicans to Kurtzman's abominations for the Woke (or, for some of the well-read "Grey Tribe" techno-optimists in places like this, it looks something like "The Culture" (shudders)).
Me? It looks more like Battletech, Dune, or Warhammer 40,000.
If we're just going to make up fictitious weapons, I don't see why we can't make up fictitious countermeasures as well.
Warfare however does give a fuck about internal cohesion. Anybody that's ever done it will tell you that. And that holds even when it's making-FOXDIE tier biomedical spycraft.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
3d ago
EA exists within the liberal democratic view of human rights
What's a "human right"? I'm not asking what you think, you clearly believe in some utilitarian formulation of natural law, likely in the style of J.S. Mill. That has boundaries I'm well familiar with.
I'm asking what most EA people believe.
Because in my experience it's a lot less solid than what you have in mind, generally more aligned to Rawls than Mill and almost entirely without bounds.
I do not believe that Effective Altruists would oppose vaccine mandates categorically under grounds of bodily autonomy, for instance.
I do not think it is fair to directly fault EA at large for Ziz and SBF. [...] they literally disavowed the individual and their ideas. [...] SBF also fooled a great many worldly financial types outside of EA
I understand those as fair arguments, but they are the same fair arguments Khrushchev made for Stalin and that Marx made for Guesde. We are responsible for what we bring into the world, the purpose of a system is what it does, etc.
this is an extremely broad criticism that applies to many religions and ideologies.
Of course. And I denounce them all as capable of the same horrors.
Lizzardspawn
3d ago
Genetically engineered viruses don't give a fuck about internal cohesion of a part of the social strata.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
If no genes are good or bad then they ought to have no objection to an embryo being edited to have the "bad" genes that produce congenital disorders of one type or another.
The objection is that the procedure to edit such an embryo is neither risk-free nor costless. So why, then, would you pursue a costly, risky procedure, unless you think there's something to be gained from it? Putting an embryo at risk of complications for absolutely no reason whatsoever is something that probably should be forbidden, no?
If you truly believe that all genes are equal, then you'd believe that there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever even bother replacing one human gene with another, and thus, no reason whatsoever to spend even the slightest time and effort developing the technology to do so.
This was a key thrust of Prior's whole mass of arguments, and why he chimed in with them any time CRISPR or gene editing came up: anyone who supports (or, for that matter, allows to pass unopposed) any form of research whatsoever into human genetic modification is definitionally a Nazi, and must be dealt with accordingly.
The aversion to judging negatively fails when it results in the reluctance to provide any judgements at all. It's an overcorrection. Failure to exercise judgement can be equally as bad as eagerness (thisisfine.jpg).
I agree. But then, to folks like Prior, that just makes us two more people who clearly and obviously want another six million murdered.
the_Culture_is_great
3d ago
Why is "requiring outside subsidies" an issue?
What charities are more effective per dollar than PEPFAR?
Indentured servitude fixes this. I'm half kidding, but I think at least two of my ancestors were indentured at Jamestown.
Unions are bad, in my view. Should not be legally empowered by the government as they have been.
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