I am a Research Scientist at the Humane and Sustainable Food Lab at Stanford.
Here is my date-me doc.
the lab I work at is seeking collaborators! More here.
If you want to write a meta-analysis, I'm happy to consult! I think I know something about what kinds of questions are good candidates, what your default assumptions should be, and how to delineate categories for comparisons
Hi Ben, I agree that there are a lot of intermediate weird outcomes that I don't consider, in large part because I see them as less likely than (I think) you do. I basically think society is going to keep chugging along as it is, in the same way that life with the internet is certainly different than life without it but we basically all still get up, go to work, seek love and community, etc.
However I don't think I'm underestimating how transformative AI would be in the section on why my work continues to make sense to me if we assume AI is going to kill us all or usher in utopia, which I think could be fairly described as transformative scenarios ;)
If McDonalds becomes human-labor-free, I am not sure what effect that would have on advocating for cage-free campaigns. I could see it going many ways, or no ways. I still think persuading people that animals matter, and they should give cruelty-free options a chance, is going to matter under basically every scenario I could think of, including that one.
I'd like to see a serious re-examination of the evidence underpinning GiveWell's core recommendations, focusing on
I did this for one intervention in GiveWell should fund an SMC replication & @Holden Karnofsky did a version of it in Minimal-trust investigations, but I think these investigations are worth doing multiple times over the years from multiple parties. It's a lot of work though, so I see why it doesn't get done too often.
I wonder what the optimal protein intake is for trying to increase power to mass ratio, which is the core thing the sports I do (running, climbing, and hiking) ask for. I do not think that gaining mass is the average health/fitness goal, nor obviously the right thing for most people. I'd bet that most Americans would put losing weight and aerobic capacity a fair bit higher.
Hi James, neat visualizations, and very validating that you were able to extend our work like this! We worked hard to make our materials legible but you don't really know how well that went until someone actually tries to use them 😃 So this is great to see.
Totally, I did not mean to suggest that protein and fiber are fungible. Rather I wonder if plant-based options might do better to play to their strengths, one of which is fiber.
I would also say that I've never noticed if the Sofritas portion is smaller than the equivalent animal-based portion but if that were true on average across Chipotles, it would suggest some interesting follow-ups:
As a side note, it seems that many people I talk to IRL have somewhat extreme beliefs about how much protein they need & don't have a good sense of how much protein is in grains and legumes, but that is a post for another time. (Update: a little research suggests, indeed, some confusions around this topic, but also generally low enthusiasm for PBAs)
It is very possible that this will have transformative effects! Two pieces of counter-evidence worth contending with though:
P.S. on the subject of meat-heavy celebrations, I am going to a pig roast tomorrow and expecting to be able to eat nothing, so I'll just bring my own food or eat beforehand...but I'm used to this dance 😃
Hi Chris, a few thoughts about this:
I am amenable to this argument and generally skeptical of longtermism on practical grounds. (I have a lot of trouble thinking of someone 300-500 years ago plausibly doing anything with my interests in mind that actually makes a difference. Possible exceptions include folks associated with the Gloriois Revolution.)
I think the best counterargument is that it’s easier to set things on a good course than to course correct. Analogy: easier to found Google, capitalizing on advertisers’ complacency, than to fix advertising from within; easier to create Zoom than to get Microsoft to make Skype good.
Im not saying this is right but I think that is how I would try to motivate working on longtermism if I did (work on longtermism).