RedStateBlueState
Posts 8
Comments93
Trump recently said in an interview (https://time.com/6972973/biden-trump-bird-flu-covid/) that he would seek to disband the White House office for pandemic preparedness. Given that he usually doesn't give specifics on his policy positions, this seems like something he is particularly interested in.
I know politics is discouraged on the EA forum, but I thought I would post this to say: EA should really be preparing for a Trump presidency. He's up in the polls and IMO has a >50% chance of winning the election. Right now politicians seem relatively receptive to EA ideas, this may change under a Trump administration.
Yes, I just would have emphasized it more. I sort of read it as “yeah this is something you might do if you’re really interested”, while I would more say “this is something you should really probably do”
Mostly agreed, but I do think that donating some money, if you are able, is a big part of being in EA. And again this doesn’t mean reorienting your entire career to become a quant and maximize your donation potential.
All punishment is tragic, I guess, in that it would be a better world if we didn't have to punish anyone. I guess I just don't think the fact that SBF on some level "believed" in EA (whatever that means, and if that is even true) - despite not acting in accordance with the principles of EA - is a reason that his punishment is more tragic than anyone else's
This is just not true if you read about the case, he obviously knew he was improperly taking user funds and tells all sorts of incoherent lies to explain it, and it's really disappointing to see so many EAs continue to believe he was well-intentioned. You can quibble about the length of sentencing, but he broke the law, and he was correctly punished for it.
Suppose someone were to convince you that the interventions GiveWell pursues are not the best way to improve "global capacity", and that a better way would be to pursue more controversial/speculative causes like population growth or long-run economic growth or whatever. I just don't see EA reorienting GHW-worldview spending toward controversial causes like this, ever. The controversial stuff will always have to compete with animal welfare and AI x-risk. If your worldview categorization does not always make the GHW worldview center on non-controversial stuff, it is practically meaningless. This is why I was so drawn to this post - I think you correctly point out that "improving the lives of current humans" is not really what GHW is about!
The non-controversial stuff doesn't have to be anti-malaria efforts or anything that GiveWell currently pursues; I agree with you there that we shouldn't dogmatically accept these current causes. But you should really be defining your GHW worldview such that it always centers on non-controversial stuff. Is this kind of arbitrary? You bet! As you state in this post, there are at least some reasons to stay away from weird causes, so it might not be totally arbitrary. But honestly it doesn't matter whether it's arbitrary or not; some donors are just really uncomfortable about pursuing philosophical weirdness, and GHW should be for them.
How are you defining global capacity, then? This is currently being argued in other replies better than I can, but I think there’s a good chance that the most reasonable definition implies optimal actions very different than GiveWell. Although I could be wrong.
I don’t really think the important part is the metric - the important part is that we’re aiming for interventions that agree with common sense and don’t require accepting controversial philosophical positions (beyond rejecting pro-local bias I guess)
Love the post, don't love the names given.
I think "capacity growth" is a bit too vague, something like "tractable, common-sense global interventions" seems better.
I also think "moonshots" is a bit derogatory, something like "speculative, high-uncertainty causes" seems better.
Love a good cost-effectiveness calculation.
Has anyone done a calculation of the (wild) animal welfare effects of climate change? Or is this so ungodly intractable that no one has dared attempt it.