“After learning from the vitalists that EA makes us coddled and soy, preventing people from having toughening, formative experiences like dying of malaria” golden 😂
From Bentham's Bulldog I learned the best possible news: that if a child is drown in the pond it allows them to become closer to the infinitely long and infinitely good afterlife and all the suffering of our world are helping to achieve even greater goods in this afterlife, so saving a child would be making them a disservice, really.
Now, if you feel that I'm misinterpreting you here, and that it's completely coherent to think that perfectly good god would create universe with suffering while aliviating this suffering is still a good thing, then it shouldn't be hard to understand how one can support an action of saving a child from the pond, while critisizing the implications of child-from-the-pond-saviorism as a current socio-political system.
Matthew would you mind reading my version of a moral harmony argument? I was really inspired by your writings on harmony arguments in general so I wrote this
You forgot the lesson from Sigal Samuel at Vox that because helping people is not reducible to one thing, it's "artificially simplistic" to compare those outputs explicitly, and but somehow less simplistic to just give wherever makes us "feel whole." https://exasperatedalien.substack.com/p/optimization-is-integrity
Hello. I am a casual reader of yours with a very "ecumenical" approach to who I follow on social; I'm all over the place, I have fewer litmus tests than most. I actually used to be a defender of EA until I found myself working for a catastrophically poorly run EA-linked institution, so I think I would be difficult to paint as a close-minded anti. My views today are more like those in Nuno Sempere's "Unflattering Aspects of Effective Altruism" post, or
Mollie Gleiberman's "Effective altruism and the strategic ambiguity of'doing good'" paper, if they were stated rather more harshly. I still subscribed to you because hey, few litmus tests.
Your post is of course sarcastic, but I think it is very noteworthy that if it were not sarcastic, it would be in almost exactly the same genre as Psalm 14, the one that begins:
> The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good...
Perhaps in time, EA will radicalize to the point where the sarcasm is dropped, and you can all just sit around literally affirming to each other:
> The fool has said in his heart not to worry about any looming robot uprising. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who researches AI safety; they don't even care about shrimp...
Have you written about Brennan's take on Singer's pond case? Basically, if we altered the case to make it more like reality, there would be millions of people falling into ponds all the time and you would have to spend pretty much every waking moment saving them.
No, but I think even if it's right, in such a world one would have a duty to make saving children a major part of their life, even if it's not all they do.
I'm not sure how the raw number of people falling into ponds changes much. Maybe it should make you think about enforcing a maximum depth on ponds, or if you're a vitalist, really taking time out to make your jokes about drowning children super good for the benefit of passers by. But ultimately, between you and God, are you gonna get in there or not, ever?
I just sent $50 to the nearest factory farm.
“After learning from the vitalists that EA makes us coddled and soy, preventing people from having toughening, formative experiences like dying of malaria” golden 😂
Nice, I really enjoyed this one.
From Bentham's Bulldog I learned the best possible news: that if a child is drown in the pond it allows them to become closer to the infinitely long and infinitely good afterlife and all the suffering of our world are helping to achieve even greater goods in this afterlife, so saving a child would be making them a disservice, really.
Now, if you feel that I'm misinterpreting you here, and that it's completely coherent to think that perfectly good god would create universe with suffering while aliviating this suffering is still a good thing, then it shouldn't be hard to understand how one can support an action of saving a child from the pond, while critisizing the implications of child-from-the-pond-saviorism as a current socio-political system.
I found this posts satire pretty grating sadly
Matthew would you mind reading my version of a moral harmony argument? I was really inspired by your writings on harmony arguments in general so I wrote this
https://open.substack.com/pub/nietzstache/p/the-argument-from-ethical-harmony
Thank you :)
Lmao, I love you, you pencil looking motherfucker!
You forgot the lesson from Sigal Samuel at Vox that because helping people is not reducible to one thing, it's "artificially simplistic" to compare those outputs explicitly, and but somehow less simplistic to just give wherever makes us "feel whole." https://exasperatedalien.substack.com/p/optimization-is-integrity
Hello. I am a casual reader of yours with a very "ecumenical" approach to who I follow on social; I'm all over the place, I have fewer litmus tests than most. I actually used to be a defender of EA until I found myself working for a catastrophically poorly run EA-linked institution, so I think I would be difficult to paint as a close-minded anti. My views today are more like those in Nuno Sempere's "Unflattering Aspects of Effective Altruism" post, or
Mollie Gleiberman's "Effective altruism and the strategic ambiguity of'doing good'" paper, if they were stated rather more harshly. I still subscribed to you because hey, few litmus tests.
Your post is of course sarcastic, but I think it is very noteworthy that if it were not sarcastic, it would be in almost exactly the same genre as Psalm 14, the one that begins:
> The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good...
Perhaps in time, EA will radicalize to the point where the sarcasm is dropped, and you can all just sit around literally affirming to each other:
> The fool has said in his heart not to worry about any looming robot uprising. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who researches AI safety; they don't even care about shrimp...
Maybe some EA orgs are run badly, but at least many are highly effective and run well.
I am reminded of the words of Dennis Prager:
"Lowkey, good bad, bad good."
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx67vDrLQ6rqk2w0ot0X5NGI6G49VGRXmr?si=wQED04g6QFlItoO0
Have you written about Brennan's take on Singer's pond case? Basically, if we altered the case to make it more like reality, there would be millions of people falling into ponds all the time and you would have to spend pretty much every waking moment saving them.
No, but I think even if it's right, in such a world one would have a duty to make saving children a major part of their life, even if it's not all they do.
Major enough to where they really only have time to take care of themselves and acquire the necessary resources to keep saving others?
Not necessarily
(I ask in part bc idk what to think + sermon this morning was on the poor widow who gave more than the rich)
I think that the Schelling point as determined by the Church and Giving What We Can, of 10%, is good.
If I hit it big I will increase my donations, but I think we should stick to the Schelling point, for everyone whose finances are comfortable.
I'm not sure how the raw number of people falling into ponds changes much. Maybe it should make you think about enforcing a maximum depth on ponds, or if you're a vitalist, really taking time out to make your jokes about drowning children super good for the benefit of passers by. But ultimately, between you and God, are you gonna get in there or not, ever?