Extract: "We at GCRI oppose racism, full stop. We previously expressed this in our Statement on Racism published in June 2020 amidst protests over the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. As that explains, racism is important in its own right and also has significant implications for global catastrophic risk. Now, a troubling new incident within the field of global catastrophic risk motivates us to comment further.
The incident involves the very harmful and scientifically dubious idea of a genetic basis of racial differences in intelligence. As elaborated below, this idea is harmful because it perpetuates the idea that people of certain races should dominate people of other races. Because the idea is so harmful, it should not in general be entertained, except to push back against it and the problems it causes. Instead, attention should go to the many conversations and actions needed to counteract racism and its harmful effects.
The incident involves a 1995 listserv email by Nick Bostrom and the apology Bostrom published about one week ago (i.e., in January 2023). We consider this matter worth addressing because Bostrom is a senior scholar of global catastrophic risk and related topics and because the broader field of global catastrophic risk also struggles with issues of race. This is an important moment for the field to learn and improve. Indeed, it has already sparked significant discussion (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
The 1995 listserv email states Bostrom’s belief that there are racial differences in intelligence, specifically that “Blacks are more stupid than whites”. It then uses a racial slur that will not be repeated here. In the 2023 apology, Bostrom states, “I completely repudiate this disgusting email from 26 years ago”. The apology also laments the “deeply unfair” non-genetic circumstances that lead “to inequality in social outcomes” and notes Bostrom’s own charitable contributions to addressing this unfairness. These are commendable gestures. However, the apology explicitly leaves open the possibility of genetic causes of racial differences in intelligence and fails to acknowledge the ways in which doing so is harmful.
For centuries, people—especially people of White or European ancestry—have proposed that there may be innate differences between people of different races on attributes including intelligence, virtue, and industriousness. Academic theories such as environmental determinism were developed to explain these purported differences. These propositions have, in many cases, been used to justify the political domination of one race over another, such as in colonial subjugation (as in the image above, from the Indonesian War of Independence from the Dutch Empire) and the so-called White man’s burden. In extreme cases, it has even motivated genocide.
In the present era, raising the idea of genetic racial differences in intelligence serves to perpetuate the very harmful idea that people of some races deserve to be in dominant positions of power and to be favored more generally. Suffice to say, that latter idea is one that society is still struggling to overcome. A powerful illustration is research that found that resumes with typical White names received 50% more positive responses than resumes with typical Black names despite the resumes being designed to have identical qualifications. This is not a genetic difference in intelligence or even a societal failure to provide equal education—it is a societal failure to recognize the intelligence and education that Black people do in fact have.
If it was Bostrom’s intent, in the 2023 apology, to perpetuate the political dominance of certain races, then that is an abomination. Alternatively, if that was not Bostrom’s intent, then his words are ignorant in a very worrisome fashion."
To avoid repeating the mistakes of FHI, it is essential that any other Initiative to found a similar institute incorporates an ethics advisory body which has real teeth. This would enable it to both put structures and processes in place to prevent anything like that happening again, and also to intervene the moment an ethical issue arises in order to nip it in the bud.
Just when you think you've heard it all as far as humans' depravity when it comes to the maltreatment of their fellow beings on this earth, you read something like this and realise, no, there's always a new low...
I would be willing to donate to a charity campaigning against this practice.
Learning about something like this makes me seriously revisit the question of whether this planet would be better off without human beings on it.
Originally devised around 100 years ago to reduce epileptic fits, especially in children, there is currently a wave of studies showing that it is beneficial for a wide range of neurological disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimers.
It is also being hailed as beneficial in combatting cancer, which is due to evidence showing that cancer has metabolic origins as well as genetic and environmental causes.
Funders should therefore consider supporting studies of the application of this dietary regime to combat cluster headaches, especially since it has a wide spectrum of clinical application and can bring additional health benefits.
Due to familial predisposition towards diabetes (among other reasons), I myself have been following a ketogenic lifestyle for several years now and have personally experienced numerous health benefits.
This is great work, thank you very much everyone. It's given me a lot to think about, especially the surprisingly poor performance of longtermism. I will be reframing somewhat my own arguments and terminology in future based on this information. I'd like to see more research, however, as to why longtermism performed poorly in comparison with global catastrophic risks, because many of the latter play out on a long-term timescale. So there's a bit of a contradiction.
Individual psychopathy becomes increasingly dangerous to societies as we become more technologically advanced. A psychopathic individual thus becomes as great a threat to humanity's survival as someone infected with a highly infectious disease like Ebola or the Marburg virus. We therefore need to protect ourselves through blanket monitoring of these traits via brain scans (a dysfunctional amygdala is one diagnostic criterion) and monitor them to prevent them from causing harm. They should be required to disclose their status to anyone entering into a relationship with them, due to the singularly destructive effect they can have on people.
I had one female boss in my lifetime who was definitely a sociopath, a true sadist, who had been given a position of power over vulnerable people, despite a conviction for fraud (!). She had a sixth sense of how she could best hurt you. It was horrible to behold and experience. Yet her public persona with journalists, for example, was charming and self-effacing. I shudder whenever I think of her.
Such people should be eliminated from the gene pool by being prevented from having children. (My boss's son, for example, got a conviction for animal cruelty.) They are not fully human.
The classic John Steinbeck novel, East of Eden, contains a masterful portrait of a female sociopath that still resonates today. Highly recommended read to complement scientific analyses. (The famous film of the book, with James Dean, is not a faithful representation of it, btw.)
See also article on mounting evidence for negative effect of microplastics - the material from which most bednets are made - now found everywhere in the human body, including in brain tissue:
"A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, leading researchers to call for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution.
Studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels and bone marrow.
Given the research findings, “it is now imperative to declare a global emergency” to deal with plastic pollution, said Sedat Gündoğdu, who studies microplastics at Cukurova University in Turkey.
Humans are exposed to microplastics – defined as fragments smaller than 5mm in diameter – and the chemicals used to make plastics from widespread plastic pollution in air, water and even food.
There’s much more plastic in our brains than I ever would have imagined or been comfortable with
Matthew Campen, University of New Mexico
The health hazards of microplastics within the human body are not yet well-known. Recent studies are just beginning to suggest they could increase the risk of various conditions such as oxidative stress, which can lead to cell damage and inflammation, as well as cardiovascular disease.
Animal studies have also linked microplastics to fertility issues, various cancers, a disrupted endocrine and immune system, and impaired learning and memory.
There are currently no governmental standards for plastic particles in food or water in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency is working on crafting guidelines for measuring them, and has been giving out grants since 2018 to develop new ways to quickly detect and quantify them."
It is cognitively and philosophically sloppy, and extremely ill-advised to disallow negative votes on a project, as you state:
“If I think a project has negative externalities, can I make a “negative vote” aka pay to redirect money away from it?
TBD. This may be theoretically optimal and has been used by other projects, but leaning no because of bad vibes/potential for drama and additional complexity it introduces.”
See, for example, my previous EA post on the negative externalities, including a contribution to catastrophic and x-risks, of insecticide-treated plastic bednets, 'There are no people to be effectively altruistic for on a dead planet: EA funding of projects without conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), Health and Safety Assessments (HSAs) and Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) = catastrophe'
Since a ‘negative externality’ could include catastrophic and x-risks, there is no good argument to be made for disallowing negative votes. In my view, it is completely irresponsible. The first rule should always be, ‘do no harm’.
The very first premise of this post, "Things are getting better." is flawed. Our life-support system, the biosphere, for example, has been gradually deteriorating over the past decades (centuries?) and is in danger of collapse. Currently, humanity has transgressed 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries. See:
Technological 'progress', on balance, is accelerating this potential collapse (e.g. the enormous energy resources consumed by AI). Ord should revise his position accordingly.
Please note that I have been a great fan of Ord's work in the past (particularly The Precipice, which I donated to my school library also), along with his colleagues' work on long-termism. Nevertheless, his latest work (both the blog post and the chapter in the forthcoming OUP book, Essays in Longtermism) feels like a philosophical version of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook motto, Move fast and (risk) break(ing) things. It downplays uncertainty to an irresponsible degree, and its quantitative mathematical approach fails to sufficiently take into account advances in complex systems science, where the mathematics of dynamical systems and chaos hold sway.
My god, the lack of any acknowledgement of the racism that led to FHI's downfall is stunning.
See the GCRI statement: https://gcri.org/about/statements/race-and-intelligence
Extract: "We at GCRI oppose racism, full stop. We previously expressed this in our Statement on Racism published in June 2020 amidst protests over the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. As that explains, racism is important in its own right and also has significant implications for global catastrophic risk. Now, a troubling new incident within the field of global catastrophic risk motivates us to comment further.
The incident involves the very harmful and scientifically dubious idea of a genetic basis of racial differences in intelligence. As elaborated below, this idea is harmful because it perpetuates the idea that people of certain races should dominate people of other races. Because the idea is so harmful, it should not in general be entertained, except to push back against it and the problems it causes. Instead, attention should go to the many conversations and actions needed to counteract racism and its harmful effects.
The incident involves a 1995 listserv email by Nick Bostrom and the apology Bostrom published about one week ago (i.e., in January 2023). We consider this matter worth addressing because Bostrom is a senior scholar of global catastrophic risk and related topics and because the broader field of global catastrophic risk also struggles with issues of race. This is an important moment for the field to learn and improve. Indeed, it has already sparked significant discussion (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
The 1995 listserv email states Bostrom’s belief that there are racial differences in intelligence, specifically that “Blacks are more stupid than whites”. It then uses a racial slur that will not be repeated here. In the 2023 apology, Bostrom states, “I completely repudiate this disgusting email from 26 years ago”. The apology also laments the “deeply unfair” non-genetic circumstances that lead “to inequality in social outcomes” and notes Bostrom’s own charitable contributions to addressing this unfairness. These are commendable gestures. However, the apology explicitly leaves open the possibility of genetic causes of racial differences in intelligence and fails to acknowledge the ways in which doing so is harmful.
For centuries, people—especially people of White or European ancestry—have proposed that there may be innate differences between people of different races on attributes including intelligence, virtue, and industriousness. Academic theories such as environmental determinism were developed to explain these purported differences. These propositions have, in many cases, been used to justify the political domination of one race over another, such as in colonial subjugation (as in the image above, from the Indonesian War of Independence from the Dutch Empire) and the so-called White man’s burden. In extreme cases, it has even motivated genocide.
In the present era, raising the idea of genetic racial differences in intelligence serves to perpetuate the very harmful idea that people of some races deserve to be in dominant positions of power and to be favored more generally. Suffice to say, that latter idea is one that society is still struggling to overcome. A powerful illustration is research that found that resumes with typical White names received 50% more positive responses than resumes with typical Black names despite the resumes being designed to have identical qualifications. This is not a genetic difference in intelligence or even a societal failure to provide equal education—it is a societal failure to recognize the intelligence and education that Black people do in fact have.
If it was Bostrom’s intent, in the 2023 apology, to perpetuate the political dominance of certain races, then that is an abomination. Alternatively, if that was not Bostrom’s intent, then his words are ignorant in a very worrisome fashion."
To avoid repeating the mistakes of FHI, it is essential that any other Initiative to found a similar institute incorporates an ethics advisory body which has real teeth. This would enable it to both put structures and processes in place to prevent anything like that happening again, and also to intervene the moment an ethical issue arises in order to nip it in the bud.
Just when you think you've heard it all as far as humans' depravity when it comes to the maltreatment of their fellow beings on this earth, you read something like this and realise, no, there's always a new low...
I would be willing to donate to a charity campaigning against this practice.
Learning about something like this makes me seriously revisit the question of whether this planet would be better off without human beings on it.
One possible intervention to reduce suffering from cluster headaches is the ketogenic diet: high fat, medium protein, ultra-low carbohydrate.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2018.00064/full
https://thejournalofheadacheandpain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1129-2377-16-S1-A99
Originally devised around 100 years ago to reduce epileptic fits, especially in children, there is currently a wave of studies showing that it is beneficial for a wide range of neurological disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimers.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9890290/
It is also being hailed as beneficial in combatting cancer, which is due to evidence showing that cancer has metabolic origins as well as genetic and environmental causes.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667394023000072
Additionally, it can benefit diabetes sufferers:
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/3/500
A review study in a related area showed that the ketogenic diet can bring relief for migraine sufferers also:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1204700/full
Funders should therefore consider supporting studies of the application of this dietary regime to combat cluster headaches, especially since it has a wide spectrum of clinical application and can bring additional health benefits.
Due to familial predisposition towards diabetes (among other reasons), I myself have been following a ketogenic lifestyle for several years now and have personally experienced numerous health benefits.
This is great work, thank you very much everyone. It's given me a lot to think about, especially the surprisingly poor performance of longtermism. I will be reframing somewhat my own arguments and terminology in future based on this information. I'd like to see more research, however, as to why longtermism performed poorly in comparison with global catastrophic risks, because many of the latter play out on a long-term timescale. So there's a bit of a contradiction.
I'd like to include an illustration in a post - how do I do that. A jpg that I copied and pasted into the text didn't work.
Fantastic article, I've shared it on LinkedIn.
Individual psychopathy becomes increasingly dangerous to societies as we become more technologically advanced. A psychopathic individual thus becomes as great a threat to humanity's survival as someone infected with a highly infectious disease like Ebola or the Marburg virus. We therefore need to protect ourselves through blanket monitoring of these traits via brain scans (a dysfunctional amygdala is one diagnostic criterion) and monitor them to prevent them from causing harm. They should be required to disclose their status to anyone entering into a relationship with them, due to the singularly destructive effect they can have on people.
I had one female boss in my lifetime who was definitely a sociopath, a true sadist, who had been given a position of power over vulnerable people, despite a conviction for fraud (!). She had a sixth sense of how she could best hurt you. It was horrible to behold and experience. Yet her public persona with journalists, for example, was charming and self-effacing. I shudder whenever I think of her.
Such people should be eliminated from the gene pool by being prevented from having children. (My boss's son, for example, got a conviction for animal cruelty.) They are not fully human.
The classic John Steinbeck novel, East of Eden, contains a masterful portrait of a female sociopath that still resonates today. Highly recommended read to complement scientific analyses. (The famous film of the book, with James Dean, is not a faithful representation of it, btw.)
Many thanks, have edited headline accordingly.
See also article on mounting evidence for negative effect of microplastics - the material from which most bednets are made - now found everywhere in the human body, including in brain tissue:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health
"A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, leading researchers to call for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution.
Studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels and bone marrow.
Given the research findings, “it is now imperative to declare a global emergency” to deal with plastic pollution, said Sedat Gündoğdu, who studies microplastics at Cukurova University in Turkey.
Humans are exposed to microplastics – defined as fragments smaller than 5mm in diameter – and the chemicals used to make plastics from widespread plastic pollution in air, water and even food.
There’s much more plastic in our brains than I ever would have imagined or been comfortable with Matthew Campen, University of New Mexico The health hazards of microplastics within the human body are not yet well-known. Recent studies are just beginning to suggest they could increase the risk of various conditions such as oxidative stress, which can lead to cell damage and inflammation, as well as cardiovascular disease.
Animal studies have also linked microplastics to fertility issues, various cancers, a disrupted endocrine and immune system, and impaired learning and memory.
There are currently no governmental standards for plastic particles in food or water in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency is working on crafting guidelines for measuring them, and has been giving out grants since 2018 to develop new ways to quickly detect and quantify them."
It is cognitively and philosophically sloppy, and extremely ill-advised to disallow negative votes on a project, as you state:
“If I think a project has negative externalities, can I make a “negative vote” aka pay to redirect money away from it?
See, for example, my previous EA post on the negative externalities, including a contribution to catastrophic and x-risks, of insecticide-treated plastic bednets, 'There are no people to be effectively altruistic for on a dead planet: EA funding of projects without conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), Health and Safety Assessments (HSAs) and Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) = catastrophe'
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xcvjuH5jgzmAtgdit/there-are-no-people-to-be-effectively-altruistic-for-on-a
Since a ‘negative externality’ could include catastrophic and x-risks, there is no good argument to be made for disallowing negative votes. In my view, it is completely irresponsible. The first rule should always be, ‘do no harm’.
The very first premise of this post, "Things are getting better." is flawed. Our life-support system, the biosphere, for example, has been gradually deteriorating over the past decades (centuries?) and is in danger of collapse. Currently, humanity has transgressed 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries. See:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/planetary-boundary-health-checks/
Technological 'progress', on balance, is accelerating this potential collapse (e.g. the enormous energy resources consumed by AI). Ord should revise his position accordingly.
Please note that I have been a great fan of Ord's work in the past (particularly The Precipice, which I donated to my school library also), along with his colleagues' work on long-termism. Nevertheless, his latest work (both the blog post and the chapter in the forthcoming OUP book, Essays in Longtermism) feels like a philosophical version of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook motto, Move fast and (risk) break(ing) things. It downplays uncertainty to an irresponsible degree, and its quantitative mathematical approach fails to sufficiently take into account advances in complex systems science, where the mathematics of dynamical systems and chaos hold sway.