Thanks everyone for the constructive feedback. I apologize for two things: 1) misdirecting my anger towards the big donors when it was really directed at the Silicon Valley culture as a whole, and 2) not communicating myself as productively and effectively as I should have. I've made changes based on that and welcome further feedback and thoughts.
Thank you for your feedback. I agree that my anger was aimed at the wrong target and not communicated well. I've made changes which hopefully clarify things a little.
One thing I should have done was to distinguish long shots from what I consider to be quixotic quests. Working on wild animal welfare or insect welfare is a long shot that I wholeheartedly support. Paying millions for a superbowl commercial is a quixotic quest. Of course, there's disagreement on what falls into one or the other, but what my criticism is primarily aimed at is things that are quixotic quests or bordering on quixotic.
This is a fair criticism. I wasn’t clear that my negativity is directed towards the Silicon Valley/limited liability culture in general, and that these IPOs are just a manifestation of that.
This makes sense to me, and I recognize it would be harder than just tossing money onto the streets. The point I was trying to make is that the bar is pretty high, and the vibes I’m getting are that we are far short of that bar at the moment.
My apologies for using you as an example of disillusionment—I was going off a conversation I had with an acquaintance who talked with you once, and that probably led to me hearing something out of context. I will edit the article to reflect that.
I still stand by my position that it’s possible (though I don’t know how likely) for activism and moral suasion to bring about a moral revolution on their own, and the rest of the forum can fight me on that. But I also absolutely think alternative proteins are a great lever for change and that we should use everything we can to bring about the change we want to see. As Frederick Douglass said, men in earnest don’t fight with one hand when they might fight with two.
I look forward to reading your new book as well! And thank you for all the work that you’ve done; it is an inspiration to me and I’m sure to many others :)
I'm going to press on point 2; I think this is self-defeating as it suggests the future will just be bad, so by this line of reasoning we shouldn't even try to reduce extinction risks.
Even for non-negative utilitarians, I think the marginal value of working on reducing extinction risks on its own is much less than is generally currently believed.
One crux is whether we assume that the future is likely to be high-value as it is. A core claim of those who think working on extinction risks is the most important is that we are very likely to have a high-value future. For many reasons, I am skeptical of this claim. While one may argue that we are making progress in including more beings in our moral circles, we've arguably still not reached a state where we've even reached parity in terms of welfare, particularly if we include non-human animals. To claim the future is very likely to be high-value, particularly to the extent that some anti-X-risk individuals claim, is fairly ungrounded.
As someone who is sympathetic to a form of negative utilitarianism and anti-frustrationism, I think that the lack of creation of value is generally secondary to the reduction or prevention of suffering.
Many very rich and highly influential people are very concerned about extinction risks. Aside from the problematicity of such individuals being an overwhelming source of funding for movements like EA, it would suggest that extinction risks are less neglected than suffering risks. For reference, Animal Advocacy Careers has reported that the global annual level of funding for farmed animal advocacy is <200 million USD.
I only leave 1 unit away from being the most towards valuing futures where we survive because of uncertainty that I might be highly wrong about something, whether it's my ethical framework or about marginal value of working on extinction risks.
Some caveats:
I find some of the more extreme claims or theories from individuals and groups concerned with S-risks to be implausible, and I personally think pursuing some of these directions is not an effective use of time and resources. Ditto for X-risk claims.
I think there are deeper systemic issues (e.g. current instantiations of capitalism/neoliberalism) which are driving us towards both higher extinction risk and higher levels and expected levels of suffering. This is what I am personally driven towards focusing on, and not coincidentally, I think we need more focus of this sort.
I’m glad that you did end up being able to attend EAG Boston 2024, because it was lovely to have a chance to meet you!
I just want to say that I think the rejection decisions really didn’t make sense to me. After meeting you, I really felt that you were someone I looked up to as a person who follows EA principles, and I really felt like you were an important part of the EA/Animal Advocacy communities. The decision to reject you 3 times, especially after you put so much effort into the applications, took feedback, and mentioned the projects and connections you had, is just downright puzzling to me. Especially since it wasn’t actually due to capacity!
I’m upset both on your behalf that you had to go through this and on the behalf of others who may have faced similar circumstances. This sort of mismanagement and obfuscation is what I would expect from a corporate HR department, not an EA organization. Do better, EA Global.
Thanks everyone for the constructive feedback. I apologize for two things: 1) misdirecting my anger towards the big donors when it was really directed at the Silicon Valley culture as a whole, and 2) not communicating myself as productively and effectively as I should have. I've made changes based on that and welcome further feedback and thoughts.
Thank you for your feedback. I agree that my anger was aimed at the wrong target and not communicated well. I've made changes which hopefully clarify things a little.
One thing I should have done was to distinguish long shots from what I consider to be quixotic quests. Working on wild animal welfare or insect welfare is a long shot that I wholeheartedly support. Paying millions for a superbowl commercial is a quixotic quest. Of course, there's disagreement on what falls into one or the other, but what my criticism is primarily aimed at is things that are quixotic quests or bordering on quixotic.
This is a fair criticism. I wasn’t clear that my negativity is directed towards the Silicon Valley/limited liability culture in general, and that these IPOs are just a manifestation of that.
This makes sense to me, and I recognize it would be harder than just tossing money onto the streets. The point I was trying to make is that the bar is pretty high, and the vibes I’m getting are that we are far short of that bar at the moment.
Argh sorry again; I thought I’d pressed the publish changes button. Hopefully now it’s updated!
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for reading my post!
My apologies for using you as an example of disillusionment—I was going off a conversation I had with an acquaintance who talked with you once, and that probably led to me hearing something out of context. I will edit the article to reflect that.
I still stand by my position that it’s possible (though I don’t know how likely) for activism and moral suasion to bring about a moral revolution on their own, and the rest of the forum can fight me on that. But I also absolutely think alternative proteins are a great lever for change and that we should use everything we can to bring about the change we want to see. As Frederick Douglass said, men in earnest don’t fight with one hand when they might fight with two.
I look forward to reading your new book as well! And thank you for all the work that you’ve done; it is an inspiration to me and I’m sure to many others :)
I'm going to press on point 2; I think this is self-defeating as it suggests the future will just be bad, so by this line of reasoning we shouldn't even try to reduce extinction risks.
A couple of things:
Even for non-negative utilitarians, I think the marginal value of working on reducing extinction risks on its own is much less than is generally currently believed.
One crux is whether we assume that the future is likely to be high-value as it is. A core claim of those who think working on extinction risks is the most important is that we are very likely to have a high-value future. For many reasons, I am skeptical of this claim. While one may argue that we are making progress in including more beings in our moral circles, we've arguably still not reached a state where we've even reached parity in terms of welfare, particularly if we include non-human animals. To claim the future is very likely to be high-value, particularly to the extent that some anti-X-risk individuals claim, is fairly ungrounded.
As someone who is sympathetic to a form of negative utilitarianism and anti-frustrationism, I think that the lack of creation of value is generally secondary to the reduction or prevention of suffering.
Many very rich and highly influential people are very concerned about extinction risks. Aside from the problematicity of such individuals being an overwhelming source of funding for movements like EA, it would suggest that extinction risks are less neglected than suffering risks. For reference, Animal Advocacy Careers has reported that the global annual level of funding for farmed animal advocacy is <200 million USD.
I only leave 1 unit away from being the most towards valuing futures where we survive because of uncertainty that I might be highly wrong about something, whether it's my ethical framework or about marginal value of working on extinction risks.
Some caveats:
I find some of the more extreme claims or theories from individuals and groups concerned with S-risks to be implausible, and I personally think pursuing some of these directions is not an effective use of time and resources. Ditto for X-risk claims.
I think there are deeper systemic issues (e.g. current instantiations of capitalism/neoliberalism) which are driving us towards both higher extinction risk and higher levels and expected levels of suffering. This is what I am personally driven towards focusing on, and not coincidentally, I think we need more focus of this sort.
May add more later.
Hi Constance,
I’m glad that you did end up being able to attend EAG Boston 2024, because it was lovely to have a chance to meet you!
I just want to say that I think the rejection decisions really didn’t make sense to me. After meeting you, I really felt that you were someone I looked up to as a person who follows EA principles, and I really felt like you were an important part of the EA/Animal Advocacy communities. The decision to reject you 3 times, especially after you put so much effort into the applications, took feedback, and mentioned the projects and connections you had, is just downright puzzling to me. Especially since it wasn’t actually due to capacity!
I’m upset both on your behalf that you had to go through this and on the behalf of others who may have faced similar circumstances. This sort of mismanagement and obfuscation is what I would expect from a corporate HR department, not an EA organization. Do better, EA Global.
Strong +1 agreement to all points