In honor of my trolls, I'm going to evangelize the things they accused me of. Because if the trolls are against it, then it must not be that bad!
So here's me evangelizing for
1. Effective Altruism
2. Population growth
3. Neoliberalism
4. Evolutionary psych
1. I think of Effective Altruism as "Altruism studies" - a discipline that exists largely outside of academia. The dominant paradigm within this discipline involves utilitarianism, RCTs, rationalism, longtermism, concerns about AGI, etc. However, many reject part or all of these elements. If you have good arguments against any element, I invite you to contribute by posting your criticism on the EA forum. EA is so young and is in desperate need of good compelling critiques.
2. Population ethics is generally an area of philosophy I stay away from. Where else does logic and intuition so differ? But heres my thought on population growth; Mathus was right until he wasn't. He saw the trends and realized the trends were bad and rightfully sounded the alarm. But then we got synthetic manure and GMOs which greatly reduced how much land we need, and are likely the two inventions which have saved more lives than any other.
So if you are concerned about population growth but want kids, then have kids and offset the extra amount of land and resources they need by eating more GMOs. GMOs have repeatedly shown to be safe, and no different than natural breeding techniques, and they are better for the environment.
3. Neoliberalism is ill defined because it was originally meant as an insult. But when my trolls accused me of being a neoliberal apologist, I can only assume they meant "capitalism", so here's my defence of capitalism: it's good actually. You need strong markets if you are going to fund a welfare state. That's what Denmark has done, and we should follow their example. Yay for markets!
4. EvoPsych has some bad apples, bad assumptions, and bad methodologies. And I could focus on that, but to honor my trolls I will only offer defences of the field. And here's my defence of EvoPsych; I'm glad somebody is doing it. I am glad that someone is taking the current paradigm seriously and seeing where it leads. If you disagree, you should develop the new paradigm and challenge them. I will even read your paper.
So please everyone, I ask of you to contribute to EA! Contribute to population growth! Contribute to our markets! And contribute to EvoPsych! The world will be better off as you engage in these ways
@jtpeterson Ad 1, the good faith critique of MacAskill is "he gets everything wrong." He says 15 degrees of global warming are survivable, which no serious climatologist thinks; he cites conversations with scientists and other experts who say they've never talked to him; he brushes off real problems like genocide as not-existenti. All of this can be said in EA forums, but how seriously should I take a movement that has a warmer reaction to cranks and white supremacists than to Timnit Gebru?
@Alon @jtpeterson The "longtermist" 4000 billion human AI stuff is a dangerous cult, but it seems to me (although I know very little on the subject) that normie effective altruism ideas like trying to measure how much "good" charities do for a given amount of funding and giving to the most efficient ones are still valuable. I wonder if there should be a new label to set those ideas apart from pro-global-warming BS.
@scunneen @jtpeterson Yeah, normie stuff about malaria is good, but that's a little bit like saying Judaism is a good religion because "you shall not murder" and "you shall not steal" are good commandments. Everything else that makes EA distinctive is bad: longtermism and AI risk are GIGO analysis, and Earn to Give centers idle money over work (cf. skill-oriented charity like Doctors Without Borders).
@Alon @scunneen @jtpeterson 80k has been saying since 2015 that most people who care about impartial impact (the EA movement's audience) should focus on direct work on high-impact stuff rather than earning to give.
https://80000hours.org/2015/07/80000-hours-thinks-that-only-a-small-proportion-of-people-should-earn-to-give-long-term/
80,000 Hours thinks that only a small proportion of people should earn to give long term
Norman Borlaug didn't make millions, his research just saved millions of lives. One of the most common misconceptions that we've encountered about 80,000 Hours is that we're exclusively or predominantly focused on earning to give. This blog post is to say definitively that this is not the case. Moreover, the proportion of people for whom we think earning to give is the best option has gone down over time.
JTPeterson
Alon
scunneen (he/him) 🚋
Sunyshore (ナギサシティ) 🌐🇹🇼🏳️⚧️