C.S. Lewis had a remark that there never is a "new kind of morality". Usually just old kinds of morality with particular bits singled out and blown up all our of proportion.
It's unclear to me what's *new* in EA. Tithe to charity, old news. Utilitarianism, old news. The idea of smart/rich patrons directing funds versus committees, old news.
All that you really do is take those things and steroid them up, as if that hasn't been done before and people learned from the wreckage.
To me, one of the new things in EA is spinning the future of the Earth off into infinity and creating a situation where the evaluation of an effective intervention becomes sort of a reverse discount of future benefits. Thus advocacy that stops "climate change" has almost unlimited benefits because it will impact untold billions of people far into the future, justifying almost equally unlimited spending to attend conferences in tony destinations, while building a well in a central African village is "less effective" since it only benefits a limited number of people for a finite timespan even though the cost is many times smaller and the benefit far more immediate. And did I mention that directly observing where the money is spent is a lot more … austere.
But however great the benefits of controlling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, it still should be done in the most cost effective way, a tax on net CO2 an methane emissions and leaves more for building wells in Africa that pass cost benefit analyses.
The original idea of EA was to act as audit for charities that work in the developing world, verify if the funds were spent on useful things and measure the cost-effectiveness of the projects than recommend them to donors. This is the idea that led to the creation of GiveWell.
After a while Eliezer Yudkovsky claimed that AI is an existential danger and turned a lot of the focus of EA to AI alignment, then it became increasingly watered down in terms of measuring cost-effectiveness and by now some EA orgs are even doing political donations.
Of course you deserve credit for correctly assessing Bankman-Fried- you are almost in a class by yourself on that one, and I have been looking back actively the last few weeks trying to identify such people.
Yes, Arnold Kling - among the classiest thinking bloggers I know of. Tho wouldn't score among the highest in FITs, nevertheless consistently better than the 150 or so chosen.
on Rob Henderson piece i think there is a big role played by parents. Kids become bullies partly because it is in our nature but also because they hear parents commenting on others in an aggressive and diminishing way. don't estimate how much we learn by bad examples....
Yes, you deserve some status points but very few because your knowledge of SBF (and his Ponzi predecessors) will never be enough to speculate —much less to predict— about what he will do. Even the grotesque Roubini and the serious Ray Fair lack enough knowledge about the macroeconomy to speculate about how it will change. Tyler Coward likes to speculate about ongoing phenomena about which he knows nothing but he does it to let people know he is not just a simpleton economist. I bet his late mentor Tom Schelling always laughs at Tyler’ speculations.
"The fall of Bankman-Fried need not discredit the EA movement, which is mainly composed of good people trying to do good things."
I have yet see evidence this statement is actually true. The EA movement resembles a con to me at almost every single level. When in history haven't altruists wanted their charity to be effective? It is like a guy always declaring he will never lie to you.
'Wanting' (e.g. wanting to _believe_) that a charity is effective is very different than actually checking.
EAs also generally consider potential effectiveness with respect to other existing philanthropy. Because, e.g. cancer research, is already well funded, marginal donations/resources from EAs are likely to be more effective when directed towards other relatively 'neglected' areas.
'Altruism' is also an important component. Donating to your local symphony might be 'effective' (or not) but it sure seems relatively un-altruistic compared to, e.g. preventing/mitigating malaria.
The other big component of 'effectiveness' is efficiency, e.g. QALYs saved versus dollars donated. Donating to support cancer research might be effective and altruistic but malaria is a (much) _cheaper_ problem to address.
There's also an explore/exploit 'split' among EAs that might not be obvious to you (or many others). GiveWell is an EA charity evaluator (that also passes on donations to what they think are the best charities) and their top charities are a good example of the 'exploit' side of EA: https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
The ongoing and ceaseless work of identifying (and arguing/debating/discussing) 'new cause areas' is also a big part of EA, but I think it's a sensible component of 'exploration'. This is also the part of EA that's most easily mocked or derided by outsiders.
Like any group, I think there are some that are striving to improve the world (Scott Alexander, maybe?) and those who are not (Sam Bankman-Fried?).
My take on the EA movement (and the larger rationality / less wrong movement) is that they have not incorporated the wisdom of Spock (which, often comes only with age): “logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.”
In that vein a thought experiment I have been playing around with: suppose Sam Bankman-Fried or Caroline Ellison were raised religious, do you think they would have gone so badly astray or do you think they would have gone more badly astray?
I'm sure Arnold AGREES with Noah (as do I): >>"I strongly with Smith’s larger point," and
Noah's graphs are very interesting. The 4 lines of the richest separated into Top:
1%-0.5%,
0.5%-0.1%,
0.1%-0.01%
top 0.01%
Each group owning about 2%-12%.
He doesn't quite write "asset inflation", but accurately notes that stock and house prices have been rising fast in the last decades.
The composition of wealth with between 250%-500% of national income was also interesting, but the big "Pensions" category wasn't fully explained by Noah. How "wealthy" is a retired person who is getting $1500/month from Social Security, for the rest of their life? And I don't think the SS gov't promise is usually part of "wealth", altho it's a far better asset than the FTX token.
Eyeballing the Shiller Price-to-Earnings Ratio seems to indicate a post-1990-ish (Wall coming down, USSR disolving) range of 15-45 (peak dot.com boom), and maybe more years to be around 30, if it's to stabilize.
But it might also be that since the fiat-limiting link with gold was severed ~'72, there will be a new, upward slope of P-E ratios. I imagine a P-E line from around 10 in '75, sloping up to P-E 20 in 2000 (not 45!), continues to P-E of 30 in 2025.
The elites who make decisions will make the P-Es go on an intermittently upward slope, because that's the way the rich will keep getting richer faster than the poor get richer. Neither I nor anybody else "knows" what the most accurate slope for the P-E trend line will be in the future, and within that trend there will be increases and, at times, more rapid decreases, with the trend usually between the recent annual highs and lows.
An important point Noah doesn't quite make is that, when any rich stock seller does sell a big chunk of stock, and gets cash - they still have the problem of where to invest that cash for a better Return On Investment. With inflation, sitting on cash becomes more expensive. The constant search to maximize ROI by investors will drive more investment into stocks and fuel continued increases, as a trend.
Adding gov't debt issues complicates this even more.
In this 14 min section, Peterson talks about Hitler's noon time conversations noted by his assistents, and how it wasn't hatred or fear of the Jews, but derisive contempt and disgust.
It seems that most Dems and college educated folks have disgust and contempt for Trump and MAGA Republicans. Those feeling drive the unfair Demonization of Trump, and it's the demonization of those who disagree politically which is causing the polarization.
It was called Bush Derangement Syndrome when coined (2003?), but is now Trump Derangement Syndrome, and was used against Kavanaugh, Palin, Reagan, Nixon; and a bit against Romney & McCain.
I was calling it Democrat Derangement Syndrome; then maybe Dem Delusion Syndrome.
Now I'll call it Democrat Demonization Syndrome - and the social networks amplify its power, especially among women.
Contempt & disgust, like HR Clinton" "deplorables", or Obama's "bitter clingers", these are the feelings behind the increased demonization and its Republican / redneck counter-demonization, which remains far milder in practice, scope, and results.
If I have, it wasn't as articulate as that post. I can't believe that the phrase "gossip at scale" is original with me, but a Google search for the phrase points to my post. It does also point to this: https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1291973380640403457
Ian Leslie: Amen. Which is why, so far, we have COP-n instead of a tax on net CO2 emissions; BLM signs instead of more effective urban police forces, "Stop the Steal" instead of making it equally easy for everyone to vote.
Henderson: Maybe even true? but since we want each of the subcomponents of society to be run according to just the right combination of impersonal rules and inform norms ["gossip at scale" is just being pejorative] I don't see how the gendering of this issue is helpful.
Well I'm not so sure about that Mr. Kling. As I recall, you were the first person I saw who made less than glowing statements about SBF. I don't recall exactly what the context was, but I do remember it. I think it was something about SBF opining on some business matter, and you were calling Baloney sandwich
Apropos Henderson’s point and yours, Erik Hoel’s “The Gossip Trap”:
https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/the-gossip-trap
C.S. Lewis had a remark that there never is a "new kind of morality". Usually just old kinds of morality with particular bits singled out and blown up all our of proportion.
It's unclear to me what's *new* in EA. Tithe to charity, old news. Utilitarianism, old news. The idea of smart/rich patrons directing funds versus committees, old news.
All that you really do is take those things and steroid them up, as if that hasn't been done before and people learned from the wreckage.
To me, one of the new things in EA is spinning the future of the Earth off into infinity and creating a situation where the evaluation of an effective intervention becomes sort of a reverse discount of future benefits. Thus advocacy that stops "climate change" has almost unlimited benefits because it will impact untold billions of people far into the future, justifying almost equally unlimited spending to attend conferences in tony destinations, while building a well in a central African village is "less effective" since it only benefits a limited number of people for a finite timespan even though the cost is many times smaller and the benefit far more immediate. And did I mention that directly observing where the money is spent is a lot more … austere.
But however great the benefits of controlling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, it still should be done in the most cost effective way, a tax on net CO2 an methane emissions and leaves more for building wells in Africa that pass cost benefit analyses.
The original idea of EA was to act as audit for charities that work in the developing world, verify if the funds were spent on useful things and measure the cost-effectiveness of the projects than recommend them to donors. This is the idea that led to the creation of GiveWell.
After a while Eliezer Yudkovsky claimed that AI is an existential danger and turned a lot of the focus of EA to AI alignment, then it became increasingly watered down in terms of measuring cost-effectiveness and by now some EA orgs are even doing political donations.
Charities did audits and tried to use cost/benefit analysis before EA came along.
Of course you deserve credit for correctly assessing Bankman-Fried- you are almost in a class by yourself on that one, and I have been looking back actively the last few weeks trying to identify such people.
Yes, Arnold Kling - among the classiest thinking bloggers I know of. Tho wouldn't score among the highest in FITs, nevertheless consistently better than the 150 or so chosen.
on Rob Henderson piece i think there is a big role played by parents. Kids become bullies partly because it is in our nature but also because they hear parents commenting on others in an aggressive and diminishing way. don't estimate how much we learn by bad examples....
Yes, you deserve some status points but very few because your knowledge of SBF (and his Ponzi predecessors) will never be enough to speculate —much less to predict— about what he will do. Even the grotesque Roubini and the serious Ray Fair lack enough knowledge about the macroeconomy to speculate about how it will change. Tyler Coward likes to speculate about ongoing phenomena about which he knows nothing but he does it to let people know he is not just a simpleton economist. I bet his late mentor Tom Schelling always laughs at Tyler’ speculations.
"The fall of Bankman-Fried need not discredit the EA movement, which is mainly composed of good people trying to do good things."
I have yet see evidence this statement is actually true. The EA movement resembles a con to me at almost every single level. When in history haven't altruists wanted their charity to be effective? It is like a guy always declaring he will never lie to you.
'Wanting' (e.g. wanting to _believe_) that a charity is effective is very different than actually checking.
EAs also generally consider potential effectiveness with respect to other existing philanthropy. Because, e.g. cancer research, is already well funded, marginal donations/resources from EAs are likely to be more effective when directed towards other relatively 'neglected' areas.
'Altruism' is also an important component. Donating to your local symphony might be 'effective' (or not) but it sure seems relatively un-altruistic compared to, e.g. preventing/mitigating malaria.
The other big component of 'effectiveness' is efficiency, e.g. QALYs saved versus dollars donated. Donating to support cancer research might be effective and altruistic but malaria is a (much) _cheaper_ problem to address.
There's also an explore/exploit 'split' among EAs that might not be obvious to you (or many others). GiveWell is an EA charity evaluator (that also passes on donations to what they think are the best charities) and their top charities are a good example of the 'exploit' side of EA: https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
The ongoing and ceaseless work of identifying (and arguing/debating/discussing) 'new cause areas' is also a big part of EA, but I think it's a sensible component of 'exploration'. This is also the part of EA that's most easily mocked or derided by outsiders.
Like any group, I think there are some that are striving to improve the world (Scott Alexander, maybe?) and those who are not (Sam Bankman-Fried?).
My take on the EA movement (and the larger rationality / less wrong movement) is that they have not incorporated the wisdom of Spock (which, often comes only with age): “logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.”
In that vein a thought experiment I have been playing around with: suppose Sam Bankman-Fried or Caroline Ellison were raised religious, do you think they would have gone so badly astray or do you think they would have gone more badly astray?
Sam B-F confirms my view that utilitarians are one remove from cannibals.
I'm sure Arnold AGREES with Noah (as do I): >>"I strongly with Smith’s larger point," and
Noah's graphs are very interesting. The 4 lines of the richest separated into Top:
1%-0.5%,
0.5%-0.1%,
0.1%-0.01%
top 0.01%
Each group owning about 2%-12%.
He doesn't quite write "asset inflation", but accurately notes that stock and house prices have been rising fast in the last decades.
The composition of wealth with between 250%-500% of national income was also interesting, but the big "Pensions" category wasn't fully explained by Noah. How "wealthy" is a retired person who is getting $1500/month from Social Security, for the rest of their life? And I don't think the SS gov't promise is usually part of "wealth", altho it's a far better asset than the FTX token.
Eyeballing the Shiller Price-to-Earnings Ratio seems to indicate a post-1990-ish (Wall coming down, USSR disolving) range of 15-45 (peak dot.com boom), and maybe more years to be around 30, if it's to stabilize.
But it might also be that since the fiat-limiting link with gold was severed ~'72, there will be a new, upward slope of P-E ratios. I imagine a P-E line from around 10 in '75, sloping up to P-E 20 in 2000 (not 45!), continues to P-E of 30 in 2025.
The elites who make decisions will make the P-Es go on an intermittently upward slope, because that's the way the rich will keep getting richer faster than the poor get richer. Neither I nor anybody else "knows" what the most accurate slope for the P-E trend line will be in the future, and within that trend there will be increases and, at times, more rapid decreases, with the trend usually between the recent annual highs and lows.
An important point Noah doesn't quite make is that, when any rich stock seller does sell a big chunk of stock, and gets cash - they still have the problem of where to invest that cash for a better Return On Investment. With inflation, sitting on cash becomes more expensive. The constant search to maximize ROI by investors will drive more investment into stocks and fuel continued increases, as a trend.
Adding gov't debt issues complicates this even more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mueehTQG_TA
In this 14 min section, Peterson talks about Hitler's noon time conversations noted by his assistents, and how it wasn't hatred or fear of the Jews, but derisive contempt and disgust.
It seems that most Dems and college educated folks have disgust and contempt for Trump and MAGA Republicans. Those feeling drive the unfair Demonization of Trump, and it's the demonization of those who disagree politically which is causing the polarization.
It was called Bush Derangement Syndrome when coined (2003?), but is now Trump Derangement Syndrome, and was used against Kavanaugh, Palin, Reagan, Nixon; and a bit against Romney & McCain.
I was calling it Democrat Derangement Syndrome; then maybe Dem Delusion Syndrome.
Now I'll call it Democrat Demonization Syndrome - and the social networks amplify its power, especially among women.
Contempt & disgust, like HR Clinton" "deplorables", or Obama's "bitter clingers", these are the feelings behind the increased demonization and its Republican / redneck counter-demonization, which remains far milder in practice, scope, and results.
The full 1:16 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CJt2VwDuLE
I just read your 2020 post on gossip at scale. Have you written more about it elsewhere?
If I have, it wasn't as articulate as that post. I can't believe that the phrase "gossip at scale" is original with me, but a Google search for the phrase points to my post. It does also point to this: https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1291973380640403457
I think it is rich enough for a book! Or at least a number of video chats.
Ian Leslie: Amen. Which is why, so far, we have COP-n instead of a tax on net CO2 emissions; BLM signs instead of more effective urban police forces, "Stop the Steal" instead of making it equally easy for everyone to vote.
Henderson: Maybe even true? but since we want each of the subcomponents of society to be run according to just the right combination of impersonal rules and inform norms ["gossip at scale" is just being pejorative] I don't see how the gendering of this issue is helpful.
Well I'm not so sure about that Mr. Kling. As I recall, you were the first person I saw who made less than glowing statements about SBF. I don't recall exactly what the context was, but I do remember it. I think it was something about SBF opining on some business matter, and you were calling Baloney sandwich