The basic idea of EA is the same many people have (especially those not used to the idea of nonlinear orders): quantifying everything, even "goodness" or "utility".
Not everything is quantifiable, and even more, not any family of things (investments, in this case) admits a linear ordering (they may even not admit a total order).
There can be incomparable outcomes from actions, and they may be maximal in their suborder.
This is difficult until you stop measuring everything and dedicate a minute to think of ordered trees.
The basic idea of EA is that if you want to spend money on improving something, you probably would want to spend it as efficiently as possible because your budget isn't infinite. "Getting the biggest bang for your buck", as the say. Spending millions on a specific way to solve a certain problem when it can be solved in a different way for mere thousands is plain silly. Of course, this idea isn't new at all.
The main problem with the charity from the ultra-wealthy, of course, is that they first materially worsen the world in order to get that wealth, and then they use part of that wealth to partially undo the damage (breaking things is easier than fixing them, after all). Like trying to help to alleviate Africa's problems with clean water when your own mining megacorporation is one of the major drivers of the pollution in the first place.
I was thinking of applying partially ordered set theory to social science. Order theory assumes only comparison operation ("less than" or "greater than") is possible to perform on the elements of the sets, so ordering is possible, but the values themselves can be completely non-measurable.
Identifying what social policies work best in the long-term, hopefully. Or why certain cultural patterns persist and how they contribute to the society well-being.
It is a less effective version of mohism/state consequencialism. If 21st century biggest idea is worse than China's 6th century biggest idea, pardon my french: On a pas le cul sorti des ronces
> It is a less effective version of mohism/state consequencialism. If 21st century biggest idea is worse than China's 6th century biggest idea, pardon my french: On a pas le cul sorti des ronces
Iamverysmart tech nerds re-inventing wheels, because they did none of the reading? Say it ain't so!
Pick an ideology that allows for selfish wants. For example, long-term greed would actually allow a lot more win-win coordination than currently happens.
It’s just last century’s Objectivism with an even more smoke-and-mirrors name.
Effective altruism should have been effectively killed by SBF’s take on consequentialism - that basically the ends justify the means, and the means are all fine because one has egotistically (and narcissistically) omnipotently computed the optimal end result therefore the steps between now and that end are all justified. The problem is the world is a complex messy place, and reason is the slave of the passions, so in the real world it just seems to result in fraud and manipulation and can justify basically any kind of behaviour while making the doer believe they’re acting morally.
The idea of spending your money where it will do the most good is a good one. The execution can certainly be bad, though. Good deeds don't make up for bad deeds, and we should have learned a long time ago that "the ends justify the means" usually leads to terrible things.
You really start to get the sense that these people have never really had the opportunity to question themselves, consider their assumptions, to take up a critical posture towards the ideology. Where else could an entire movement produce exactly zero peer reviewed work and yet receive millions upon millions?
If this new way of organizing is meant to address the problems of ivory-tower academia, why does it just seem to be reproducing it at (hyper)scale? All in the name of euphemized utilitarianism?
Is there any room here for healthy debate? For academic rigor? For looking to the past? Or is it all just vibes? Just imagining a world where they didn't happen to get all their money from like one guy, but still persevered in their thought. What could that look like? Is it even anything at all?
The basic idea of EA is the same many people have (especially those not used to the idea of nonlinear orders): quantifying everything, even "goodness" or "utility".
Not everything is quantifiable, and even more, not any family of things (investments, in this case) admits a linear ordering (they may even not admit a total order).
There can be incomparable outcomes from actions, and they may be maximal in their suborder.
This is difficult until you stop measuring everything and dedicate a minute to think of ordered trees.
The basic idea of EA is that if you want to spend money on improving something, you probably would want to spend it as efficiently as possible because your budget isn't infinite. "Getting the biggest bang for your buck", as the say. Spending millions on a specific way to solve a certain problem when it can be solved in a different way for mere thousands is plain silly. Of course, this idea isn't new at all.
The main problem with the charity from the ultra-wealthy, of course, is that they first materially worsen the world in order to get that wealth, and then they use part of that wealth to partially undo the damage (breaking things is easier than fixing them, after all). Like trying to help to alleviate Africa's problems with clean water when your own mining megacorporation is one of the major drivers of the pollution in the first place.
I was thinking of applying partially ordered set theory to social science. Order theory assumes only comparison operation ("less than" or "greater than") is possible to perform on the elements of the sets, so ordering is possible, but the values themselves can be completely non-measurable.
What parts of social science do you think are amenable to this approach?
Identifying what social policies work best in the long-term, hopefully. Or why certain cultural patterns persist and how they contribute to the society well-being.
It is a less effective version of mohism/state consequencialism. If 21st century biggest idea is worse than China's 6th century biggest idea, pardon my french: On a pas le cul sorti des ronces
> It is a less effective version of mohism/state consequencialism. If 21st century biggest idea is worse than China's 6th century biggest idea, pardon my french: On a pas le cul sorti des ronces
Iamverysmart tech nerds re-inventing wheels, because they did none of the reading? Say it ain't so!
It would be if it wasn't hijacked by the scammers and the criminals.
Although it did get large donations from the scammers and the criminals, they didn't get control of it, with the result that it still saves about 50,000 lives a year: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-continued-defense-of-eff...
It only looks that way because you don't live someplace where malaria is a major problem today and don't need a kidney donation.
I'm not sure if you posted that link to make fun of EA or because you genuinely believe all the claims made there.
First there was Uber (Illegal cab company)
Then AirBnB (Illegal hotel)
Then crypto (Money for criminals)
Then came AI (Plagiarism engine)
I'm sure Effective Altruism will find a usecase!
It all starts with credentials in hiring, for future reference.
Almost any ideology, no matter how noble and inspiring, can be hijacked by the worst kind of people for their own selfish wants.
How to fix this problem?
Pick an ideology that allows for selfish wants. For example, long-term greed would actually allow a lot more win-win coordination than currently happens.
It can be done, but only partially, and it's really @#%ing hard. Christianity no longer offers indulgences, for instance.
Not starting with completely faulty ideologies where egotism and manipulation and coercion are baked-in.
What a totally ridiculous headline.
It’s just last century’s Objectivism with an even more smoke-and-mirrors name.
Effective altruism should have been effectively killed by SBF’s take on consequentialism - that basically the ends justify the means, and the means are all fine because one has egotistically (and narcissistically) omnipotently computed the optimal end result therefore the steps between now and that end are all justified. The problem is the world is a complex messy place, and reason is the slave of the passions, so in the real world it just seems to result in fraud and manipulation and can justify basically any kind of behaviour while making the doer believe they’re acting morally.
The idea of spending your money where it will do the most good is a good one. The execution can certainly be bad, though. Good deeds don't make up for bad deeds, and we should have learned a long time ago that "the ends justify the means" usually leads to terrible things.
You really start to get the sense that these people have never really had the opportunity to question themselves, consider their assumptions, to take up a critical posture towards the ideology. Where else could an entire movement produce exactly zero peer reviewed work and yet receive millions upon millions?
If this new way of organizing is meant to address the problems of ivory-tower academia, why does it just seem to be reproducing it at (hyper)scale? All in the name of euphemized utilitarianism?
Is there any room here for healthy debate? For academic rigor? For looking to the past? Or is it all just vibes? Just imagining a world where they didn't happen to get all their money from like one guy, but still persevered in their thought. What could that look like? Is it even anything at all?
Ah, Economist is on the guest list for the bay area sex cult orgy :-)