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.
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I'm confused by some of the set-up here. When considering catastrophes, your "cost to save a life" represents the cost to save that life conditional on the catastrophe being due to occur? (I'm not saying "conditional on occurring" because presumably you're allowed interventions which try to avert the catastrophe.)
Understood this way, I find this assumption very questionable:
..., since I feel like the effect of having more opportunities to save lives in catastrophes is roughly offset by the greater difficulty of preparing to take advantage of those opportu
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.
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
A very interesting summary, thanks.
However I'd like to echo Richard Chappell's unease at the praising of the use of short-term contracts in the report. These likely cause a lot of mental health problems and will dissuade people who might have a lot to contribute but can't cope with worrying about whether they will need to find a new job or even career in a couple of years' time. It could be read as a way of avoiding dealing with university processes for firing people - but then the lesson for future organisations may be to set up outside a university structure, and have a sensible degree of job security.
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
A case against focusing on tail-end nuclear war risks: Why I think that nuclear risk reduction efforts should prioritize preventing any kind of nuclear war over preventing or preparing for the worst case scenarios
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... (read more)