One thing that is notable, and to me still a bit puzzling, is that despite the advances in telecommunications over the last few decades, urban concentration is more important to the economy than ever. I wrote about it as part of my Scaling in Human Societies Living Literature Review over the last few weeks (see this and this).
It is an open question in my mind how the EA movement transforms culture and politics to a large degree. That requires influencing more than a handful of superstar cities. For that, it's not just a matter of moving to mid-sized cities in middle income countries, but building a movement there, and that takes a special skill that a minority of us have.
A closely related problem is what you touched on regarding "elitism". Yes, there is the perception, which is not entirely baseless, that the EA movement is primarily for 23 year old Ivy League graduates, and finding work in the field is difficult if you don't fit into this narrow demographic. If the movement was more geographically dispersed, so would be the job opportunities, and there would be meaningful opportunities for people outside of the elite.
An analogy that I've seen--and I apologize that I don't remember where now--is that in the early years, environmental legislation tore through the body politic like a smallpox in the Americas just after contact. In time (around the 1980s), critics learned how to respond properly and thus they greatly slowed further legislation. This analogy is not to imply that environmental legislation has been a destructive force; it's only for the dynamics.
Since the Republican Party has always been the business-oriented party since its founding, it makes sense that opposition to environmentalism would reside in the Republican Party. In recent years, climate change has emerged as a central organizing principle for Democratic politics, which culminated in the Inflation Reduction Act, although the climate movement has greatly declined since the 2024 election.
When I look at this, for one thing it is not entirely clear to me that partisanship is the reason for the decline in environmental legislation, but more than that, it seems like partisan polarization was largely inevitable. Certainly, there are some environmental activists for whom I get the impression that organizing for the Democratic Party is the main objective and environmental protection is secondary, but even then I see their behavior as a reaction to circumstances more than a cause.
There is another important aspect to the story. For people who are not familiar, it is difficult to appreciate how central the fear of overpopulation was to environmental politics of the 1960s and early 1970s, and thus how central population control was. The belief that there were too many people in the world was almost universally held among major figures. Several developments, most notably the rise of the pro-life movement after Roe v. Wade in 1973, turned the Republican Party against population control, which was a major factor in their turn away from environmentalism more broadly. I highly recommend Derek Hoff's 2010 paper on the Nixon administration's evolution on the subject with regard to the Rockefeller population commission report.
Today, the pro-life movement is a shadow of its former self, and opposition to immigration has emerged as a central point for right-wing parties all over the world. I recommend Nils Gilman's article on the subject. The stage may be set for a return of population control and a bipartisan form of environmental politics, but this may be a case of being careful what you wish for.
Those are all good points, and to be sure, I do expect that the development of non-animal protein that satisfies PTC will reduce meat consumption. By just how much, I agree that we can't predict, as it depends on many other factors. I strongly support the development of good alt-meat.
But I think some other historical analogies are instructive. For example, with aquaculture and wild-catch fishing and with low-carbon energy and fossil fuels, there have been major rebound effects that made these substitutes much less effective as replacements than one might have predicted in advance. I expect a similar thing to happen with alt-meat.
I am grateful for this project, and I do believe that developing good alt meats will help. However, some work such as Rethink Priorities' review of the PTC (Price, Taste, Convenience) hypothesis suggests that developing alternatives that win on all three metrics will not have as great an impact as we might hope. I am wondering how you think about this issue.
Having been through some career transitions, but not into AI safety in particular, I have some thoughts on the subject.
First off, you have the right instinct in trying to do some pro bono projects. You'll prove you're dedication and ability, and you'll get to know some people who might help you into a paid position. That is more or less how I got into doing environmental research.
However, there are two big caveats. First, everyone has the right to expect to be able to make a living. Unfortunately, in philanthropic spaces, many people, who incidentally themselves have secure careers or retirement wealth, will subtly make new people who insist on getting paid feel that they are being greedy and uncommitted to the cause. I'm not saying that you have fallen into that trap, but it is a trap to be wary of. You should never feel guilty because you insist upon a career.
Second, it simply is not true that AI safety or any EA cause area is bottlenecked on [whatever skill]. If that were true, it would be easy for people who possess that skill to find jobs. There have been many such false claims of labor shortages; see e.g. the supposed STEM shortage in the 2010s. False claims of a shortage are not only wrong, they are immoral because they are dishonest and because they induce people to expend large amount of unpaid labor in the false hope that they will be rewarded for doing so.
Sorry if this comes across as negative. Good luck, and I hope that you will find success.
Thanks for sharing. I think in particular about the environmental movement, where a kind of mistrust of humanity--which often crosses the line into misanthropy--holds the movement back from what it could achieve. There are systems of thought such as ecomodernism which try to present a pro-human environmentalism, but I don't think anyone has really done it right yet, at least to my knowledge.
This is a very important post, and thank you for writing it. Coming from the environmental world, this parallels my frustration that huge amount of efforts go into projects for which the evidence is shockingly flimsy. A significant fraction, maybe even the majority, of environmental advocacy is for measures that are nearly useless or outright harmful.
If you will pardon a personal plug, I wrote a piece on my Substack blog recently that looks at the evidence at a high level, drawing heavily on the methodology of Rethink Priorities' Moral Weigh Project. If we want to monetize animal welfare (in my piece, broiler chicken welfare), then estimates for the proper valuation span several orders of magnitude due to irresolvable philosophical differences. I am very grateful that the Moral Weight Project was done, but clearly we have a long way to go before we have reliable numbers that we can use.
I am particularly interested in your comments on alternative proteins, since it will be very relevant for a piece I am working on regarding meat taxation. A major focus will be to review that we know about the rebound effect and induced/latent demand to argue that, if they attain widespread market viability, alternative proteins will mostly augment the meat supply rather than replace it.
Thanks Ruth. I'm glad you found it valuable.
One thing that is notable, and to me still a bit puzzling, is that despite the advances in telecommunications over the last few decades, urban concentration is more important to the economy than ever. I wrote about it as part of my Scaling in Human Societies Living Literature Review over the last few weeks (see this and this).
It is an open question in my mind how the EA movement transforms culture and politics to a large degree. That requires influencing more than a handful of superstar cities. For that, it's not just a matter of moving to mid-sized cities in middle income countries, but building a movement there, and that takes a special skill that a minority of us have.
A closely related problem is what you touched on regarding "elitism". Yes, there is the perception, which is not entirely baseless, that the EA movement is primarily for 23 year old Ivy League graduates, and finding work in the field is difficult if you don't fit into this narrow demographic. If the movement was more geographically dispersed, so would be the job opportunities, and there would be meaningful opportunities for people outside of the elite.
An analogy that I've seen--and I apologize that I don't remember where now--is that in the early years, environmental legislation tore through the body politic like a smallpox in the Americas just after contact. In time (around the 1980s), critics learned how to respond properly and thus they greatly slowed further legislation. This analogy is not to imply that environmental legislation has been a destructive force; it's only for the dynamics.
Since the Republican Party has always been the business-oriented party since its founding, it makes sense that opposition to environmentalism would reside in the Republican Party. In recent years, climate change has emerged as a central organizing principle for Democratic politics, which culminated in the Inflation Reduction Act, although the climate movement has greatly declined since the 2024 election.
When I look at this, for one thing it is not entirely clear to me that partisanship is the reason for the decline in environmental legislation, but more than that, it seems like partisan polarization was largely inevitable. Certainly, there are some environmental activists for whom I get the impression that organizing for the Democratic Party is the main objective and environmental protection is secondary, but even then I see their behavior as a reaction to circumstances more than a cause.
There is another important aspect to the story. For people who are not familiar, it is difficult to appreciate how central the fear of overpopulation was to environmental politics of the 1960s and early 1970s, and thus how central population control was. The belief that there were too many people in the world was almost universally held among major figures. Several developments, most notably the rise of the pro-life movement after Roe v. Wade in 1973, turned the Republican Party against population control, which was a major factor in their turn away from environmentalism more broadly. I highly recommend Derek Hoff's 2010 paper on the Nixon administration's evolution on the subject with regard to the Rockefeller population commission report.
Today, the pro-life movement is a shadow of its former self, and opposition to immigration has emerged as a central point for right-wing parties all over the world. I recommend Nils Gilman's article on the subject. The stage may be set for a return of population control and a bipartisan form of environmental politics, but this may be a case of being careful what you wish for.
Those are all good points, and to be sure, I do expect that the development of non-animal protein that satisfies PTC will reduce meat consumption. By just how much, I agree that we can't predict, as it depends on many other factors. I strongly support the development of good alt-meat.
But I think some other historical analogies are instructive. For example, with aquaculture and wild-catch fishing and with low-carbon energy and fossil fuels, there have been major rebound effects that made these substitutes much less effective as replacements than one might have predicted in advance. I expect a similar thing to happen with alt-meat.
I am grateful for this project, and I do believe that developing good alt meats will help. However, some work such as Rethink Priorities' review of the PTC (Price, Taste, Convenience) hypothesis suggests that developing alternatives that win on all three metrics will not have as great an impact as we might hope. I am wondering how you think about this issue.
Having been through some career transitions, but not into AI safety in particular, I have some thoughts on the subject.
First off, you have the right instinct in trying to do some pro bono projects. You'll prove you're dedication and ability, and you'll get to know some people who might help you into a paid position. That is more or less how I got into doing environmental research.
However, there are two big caveats. First, everyone has the right to expect to be able to make a living. Unfortunately, in philanthropic spaces, many people, who incidentally themselves have secure careers or retirement wealth, will subtly make new people who insist on getting paid feel that they are being greedy and uncommitted to the cause. I'm not saying that you have fallen into that trap, but it is a trap to be wary of. You should never feel guilty because you insist upon a career.
Second, it simply is not true that AI safety or any EA cause area is bottlenecked on [whatever skill]. If that were true, it would be easy for people who possess that skill to find jobs. There have been many such false claims of labor shortages; see e.g. the supposed STEM shortage in the 2010s. False claims of a shortage are not only wrong, they are immoral because they are dishonest and because they induce people to expend large amount of unpaid labor in the false hope that they will be rewarded for doing so.
Sorry if this comes across as negative. Good luck, and I hope that you will find success.
Thanks for sharing. I think in particular about the environmental movement, where a kind of mistrust of humanity--which often crosses the line into misanthropy--holds the movement back from what it could achieve. There are systems of thought such as ecomodernism which try to present a pro-human environmentalism, but I don't think anyone has really done it right yet, at least to my knowledge.
Not many. We'd be thrilled to find more opportunities to work with advocates.
Thanks Rosa. Our work is aimed firstly at environmental advocates, for whom we want to provide better information.
This is a very important post, and thank you for writing it. Coming from the environmental world, this parallels my frustration that huge amount of efforts go into projects for which the evidence is shockingly flimsy. A significant fraction, maybe even the majority, of environmental advocacy is for measures that are nearly useless or outright harmful.
If you will pardon a personal plug, I wrote a piece on my Substack blog recently that looks at the evidence at a high level, drawing heavily on the methodology of Rethink Priorities' Moral Weigh Project. If we want to monetize animal welfare (in my piece, broiler chicken welfare), then estimates for the proper valuation span several orders of magnitude due to irresolvable philosophical differences. I am very grateful that the Moral Weight Project was done, but clearly we have a long way to go before we have reliable numbers that we can use.
I am particularly interested in your comments on alternative proteins, since it will be very relevant for a piece I am working on regarding meat taxation. A major focus will be to review that we know about the rebound effect and induced/latent demand to argue that, if they attain widespread market viability, alternative proteins will mostly augment the meat supply rather than replace it.