You can give me anonymous feedback about anything you want here.
Anders Sandberg has written a “final report” released simultaneously with the announcement of FHI’s closure. The abstract and an excerpt follow.
...Normally manifestos are written first, and then hopefully stimulate actors to implement their vision. This document is the reverse
See also Anders’s more personal reflections:
...I have reached the age when I have seen a few lifecycles of organizations and movements I have followed. One lesson is that they don’t last: even successful movements have their moment and then become something else, sclerotize into something stable but useless, or peter out. This is fine. Not in some fatalistic “death is natural” sense, but in the sense that social organizations are dynamic, ideas evolve, and there is an ecological succession of things. 1990s transhumanism begat rationalism that begat effective
My definition of “capitalism” is:
An economy with capital markets (in addition to markets in goods and services).
Most of my friends and acquaintances generally don’t have a precise definition of “capitalism”, but use the word to mean something like:
...The
I'm surprised you didn't bring up the most commonly cited defintions of capitalism and socialism.
Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production.
Socialism is the public ownership of the means of production.
Whilst there's a great deal of variation in how people envision their form of captialism/ socialism, the above are the generally agreed upon dictionary definitions of the two economic systems.
Reducing the influence of malevolent actors seems useful for reducing existential risks (x-risks) and risks of astronomical suffering (s-risks). One promising strategy for doing this is to develop manipulation-proof measures of malevolence.
I agree that most measures (including the ones that I mentioned being pessimistic about) could be used to update one’s estimated probability that an actor is malevolent, but like you, I’d be most interested in which measures give the highest value of information (relative to the costs and invasiveness of the measure).
I could have done a better job of explaining why I think that pupillometry, and particularly the measurement of pupillary responses to specific stimuli, would be much more difficult to game (if it was possible at all) relative...
One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, recently imploded after apparently transferring customer funds to cover losses at their affiliated hedge fund. Matt Levine has good coverage, especially his recent post on their balance sheet. Normally a crypto...
"At a certain point, we just have to trust the peer-review process"
Coming here late, found it an interesting comment overall, but just thought I'd say something re interpreting the peer reviewed literature as an academic, as I think people often misunderstand what peer review does. It's pretty weak and you don't just trust what comes out! Instead, look for consistent results being produced by at least a few independent groups, without there being contradictory research (researchers will rarely publish replications of results, but if a set of results don't ...
Hi Everyone!
I'm currently a high school student in the United States. I've been casually following and supporting EA for about 1.5 years now, doing what I can with donating any extra money to effective causes. However, I have recently been getting a lot more interested ...
I second Nathan's answer, but besides that here are a few programs specifically for HS students you might be interested in.
I'd also recommend applying to those university programs! When I was talking with the organizers of those programs at EAG, n=3 seemed to believe it'd be perfectly appropriate for me to apply. I suspect other programs would also (major caveat: may only apply to non-residential programs for <18 for legal reasons).
(also, Yarrow B's answer is a joke, but, anecdotally, a major failu...
Healthier Hens (HH) aims to improve cage-free hen welfare, focusing on key issues such as keel bone fractures (KBFs). In the last 6 months, we’ve conducted a vet training in Kenya, found a 42% KBF prevalence, and are exploring alternative promising interventions in...
Thanks for providing these external benchmarks and making it easier to compare! Do you mind if I updated the text to include a reference to your comments?
Indeed, since these were initial estimates, we excluded reporting the other pain intensities to keep it brief. However, once we go through the follow-up data and have the second set of estimates, we'll make sure to include all of the ranges, so that more comprehensive comparisons could be made. But my understanding is that for water and feed, it could be ~1:5:7 (disabling:hurtful:annoying) and ~1:1:0.1 fo...
I have not researched longtermism deeply. However, what I have found out so far leaves me puzzled and skeptical. As I currently see it, you can divide what longtermism cares about into two categories:
1) Existential risk.
2) Common sense long-term priorities, such as:
I guess I think of caring about future people as the core of longtermism, so if you're already signed up to that, I would already call you a longtermist? I think most people aren't signed up for that, though.
Open Philanthropy commissioned a report from Stefan Dercon on economic growth as the main driver of poverty reduction. In the report, Dercon highlights a set of overlooked policies that can help boost economic growth in developing countries, as well as key reasons ...
Here is the abstract:
...Starting from the premise that growth is essential for some of the poorest countries, this note suggests some less obvious investments complementary to the usual approaches that encourage capital transfers and technical assistance in specific areas (e.g., by private foundations or the World Bank). It uses a framing that places a key reason for lagging growth in the agency of those with power and influence — the elite — and the coalition among them — their elite-bargain — that is not conducive to growth. Proposals are articulated that t
Re.
... (read more)