Copying what I posted in the LW thread: Sam has since tweeted "25) Last night I talked to a friend of mine. They published my messages. Those were not intended to be public, but I guess they are now."
His claims are hard to believe. Kelsey is very well-known as a journalist in EA circles. She says she interviewed him for a piece in May. Before Sam's tweet, she made a point of saying that she avoids secretly pulling "but I never said it would be off-the-record, you just asked for that" shenanigans. She confirmed the conversation with an email from her work account. She disputes the "friend" claim, and says they've never had any communication in any platform she can find, other than the aforementioned interview.
The only explanations that make sense to me are:
Sam expected Kelsey's coverage to be more favorable and is now regretting his conversation
Sam has been under so much stress that even the incredibly obvious fact that this was a professional interview was something he failed to realize
Sam is just lying here, perhaps after hearing from his lawyers about how dumb the interview was
What do you have to do to have a friendly person's referral code work? Is it as simple as coordinating with a friend in the moment, or does the person need to have been a member for X time or something? Should groups of people making a trip to do this make sure they're all using each other's referral codes (except for one, since someone has to be the first person to join) to get an extra 1% in EV?
The claim that large EA donors are likely to return ≥15% annually, and plausibly 30%-100%, is incredibly optimistic. Why would we expect large EA donors to get so much higher returns on investment than everyone else, and why would such profitable opportunities still be funding-constrained? This is not a case where EA is aiming for something different from others; everyone is trying to maximize their monetary ROI with their investments.
I think there's an error in your math. You're using log base 10 consistently in your article and the linked spreadsheet, but then you say the derivative of the function log(c)+k is 1/c. If you're using log base 10 throughout, the derivate is 1/(ln(10)*c). If you use log base e throughout, then each value you got for log_10(x) should be multiplied by ln(10) to get the value of ln(x). In either case, we end up with dollar amounts a bit over 2.3 times higher than your calculated values for the value of a marginal life in a pure aggregate utilitarian framework.
Also, nit: the Carl Shulman link is broken. You left off the http:// in the original link on your blog, so it was interpreted as a relative link, which was then copied over here.
Copying what I posted in the LW thread:
Sam has since tweeted "25) Last night I talked to a friend of mine. They published my messages. Those were not intended to be public, but I guess they are now."
His claims are hard to believe. Kelsey is very well-known as a journalist in EA circles. She says she interviewed him for a piece in May. Before Sam's tweet, she made a point of saying that she avoids secretly pulling "but I never said it would be off-the-record, you just asked for that" shenanigans. She confirmed the conversation with an email from her work account. She disputes the "friend" claim, and says they've never had any communication in any platform she can find, other than the aforementioned interview.
The only explanations that make sense to me are:
What do you have to do to have a friendly person's referral code work? Is it as simple as coordinating with a friend in the moment, or does the person need to have been a member for X time or something? Should groups of people making a trip to do this make sure they're all using each other's referral codes (except for one, since someone has to be the first person to join) to get an extra 1% in EV?
The claim that large EA donors are likely to return ≥15% annually, and plausibly 30%-100%, is incredibly optimistic. Why would we expect large EA donors to get so much higher returns on investment than everyone else, and why would such profitable opportunities still be funding-constrained? This is not a case where EA is aiming for something different from others; everyone is trying to maximize their monetary ROI with their investments.
Note that Scott himself has said he agrees the Libya intervention turned out poorly and is now no longer comfortable endorsing things similar interventions, see http://web.archive.org/web/20150731041537/https://slatestarscratchpad.tumblr.com/post/125060547081/how-have-your-political-positions-shifted-through
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/19/6031367/oxford-nick-bostrom-artificial-intelligence-superintelligence
Dylan Matthews has read Superintelligence and wrote an article+interview with Bostrom about it in August 2014.
I think there's an error in your math. You're using log base 10 consistently in your article and the linked spreadsheet, but then you say the derivative of the function log(c)+k is 1/c. If you're using log base 10 throughout, the derivate is 1/(ln(10)*c). If you use log base e throughout, then each value you got for log_10(x) should be multiplied by ln(10) to get the value of ln(x). In either case, we end up with dollar amounts a bit over 2.3 times higher than your calculated values for the value of a marginal life in a pure aggregate utilitarian framework.
Also, nit: the Carl Shulman link is broken. You left off the http:// in the original link on your blog, so it was interpreted as a relative link, which was then copied over here.
Tom, can you clarify what the relationship is between the EA Hub and the EA Forum (If anything)? It seems like those links point at different things.