No.14806
What happened to the Effective Altruism movement?
When did it abandon its evidence-based, cause-neutral perspective in favor of alienating talented people with original ideas and replacing them with deceptive progressive activists?
Who is to blame, and why did rationalists let the bad actors win?
- https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/blog/ceas-work-on-diversity-equity-and-belonging/ (in the meantime, local group organizers, volunteers and interns are often neglected and treated as cheap labor)
- https://www.reddit.com/r/RightWingEA/comments/ef6r2i/effectivealtruismorgs_animal_welfare_fund_donated/
- https://www.wanbam.com/
- Future Perfect, the one and only big media column for EA, is hosted by Vox known for its bias
- 80,000 Hours is said to once spent 10% of their annual budget on a diversity hire
- https://www.facebook.com/givedirectly/posts/starting-this-week-well-be-sending-1k-each-to-people-on-snap-who-have-been-hit-h/2843736112387958/ (US single moms before poor Indians and Brazilians, so much for the global responsibility)
- countless diversity groups, including the ones explicitly dedicated to "non-white" and "non-male" people
What are your most "woke" experiences with EA? Can it be still saved?
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No.14807
>>14806
>https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/blog/ceas-work-on-diversity-equity-and-belonging/
This could be ok if it's actually effective as outreach, but I expect it isn't.
>https://www.reddit.com/r/RightWingEA/comments/ef6r2i/effectivealtruismorgs_animal_welfare_fund_donated/
This looks bad, and I have the person who submitted the reddit post mentally filed under "sensible people" (I follow them on Tumblr).
>https://www.wanbam.com/
This looks odd, but not outright harmful. It's connecting willing mentors to willing mentees, not exactly a resource sink.
>Future Perfect, the one and only big media column for EA, is hosted by Vox known for its bias
This seems like a silly complaint. Do you have examples of bias within the column? It's also hard to pin it on the movement when it's the news organizations who decide what they do and don't write about. At best it's a sign that EA is appealing to woke people, which is not bad in and of itself, though it could in principle have bad causes.
>80,000 Hours is said to once spent 10% of their annual budget on a diversity hire
Do you have a source for this? It sounds like a mangling of this bit:
https://80000hours.org/about/credibility/evaluations/mistakes/
>To do this, we’ll put more effort (up to [emphasis theirs] about 5-10% of resources) into improving our culture and finding candidates.
>https://www.facebook.com/givedirectly/posts/starting-this-week-well-be-sending-1k-each-to-people-on-snap-who-have-been-hit-h/2843736112387958/
Looks like a publicity thing to elicit donations that wouldn't otherwise have occurred.
Donations made through that link are by default directed specifically to the "COVID-19 - U.S. response" program. There's also a "COVID-19 - Africa response" program.
I think donations made through https://donate.givedirectly.org/ default to being spent at the discretion of GiveDirectly. Most contributions are not directed at specific programs ("without donor restrictions") if I'm interpreting https://www.givedirectly.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/GiveDirectly-2019-12-AUDIT.pdf correctly.
I think this is ok if only donations specifically directed to the US program are used for the US program, or if they ensure in some other way that it doesn't come at the cost of other programs, but I don't know if that's the case.
I don't know if this is particularly woke. "Single mothers" sounds like a bipartisan target.
(Disclaimers: I'm vaguely on board with social justice. I'm entirely uninvolved in the EA community and so can't speak from personal experience. I do practice EA in a very boring way. I'm not American.)
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No.14808
>>14806
> why did rationalists let the bad actors win?
Because rationalists are quokkas. Despite MIRI's academic focus on game theory, there seems to be a sense that you just have to preach reciprocity and that will totally change people. The end result is that rationalists tend to cooperate with DefectBot.
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No.14809
>>14808
> Because rationalists are quokkas
Yeah see, every single time someone says that disapprovingly, it's always been > implying that rationalists should go fight on the speaker's side (which is almost always KILLCONSUMEMULTIPLYCONQUER=GOOD) in the arena of conflict-theory-based politics.
so: go fuck yourself with a cactus-shaped steel dildo. being quokkas is what makes us morally superior to all the fucktards like you and like the fucktards you hate.
> The end result is that rationalists tend to cooperate with DefectBot.
There is no possible better illustration of that fact than our continued tolerance and infinitely extended good faith towards people like jim, kontextmaschine, mitigatedchaos, zero hp lovecraft, and the rest of our local self-declaredly evil defectbots wannabes.
And yeah, the woke side is not better! They have THE SAME MAPS and THE SAME GOALS. The only difference is what their narrative pretends it is they value. But the woke side at least tries to pretend to not be xenocidal tribalists and would have to do SOME actually good things to justify it.
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No.14810
>>14809
>being quokkas is what makes us morally superior
What on Earth is "moral superiority"? How can you rank moralities without using pre-assuming the correctness of certain moral axioms? As a KILLCONSUMEMULTIPLYCONQUER zombie myself, I'm inclined to use "which moral strategies are most prominent after millennia of competition between moral agents" as the measuring stick, but I'm sure you have a different, equally unjustified, opinion.
>self-declaredly evil defectbots
I'm very skeptical that any of these people have ever declared themselves "evil" or view themselves as such, but I'm only familiar enough with Zero to claim such with any confidence. You view their declared values as evil; they do not. And "defectbot" is baseless slander. Pic related is from a few hours before your post, advocating basically tit-for-tat with forgiveness.
>our continued tolerance and infinitely extended good faith
lol. You've become the very thing you swore to destroy!
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No.14811
>>14807
Long time EA from Western Europe, previously on board with most of the soc-jus stuff. The movement was supposed to be welcoming to folks from different cultures and of different political leanings (something like "this one thing we can all agree on"), but a minor group of tone-setting bad actors made it very exclusionary.
Conservatives were nearly absent since early days, and now the sneaky activists are going after centrists and old leftists (who favor wealth redistribution, democratic organizational structures and moderation in social issues). You are generally supposed to profess woke dogmas and avoid criticizing the actions of anybody who might be influential. What bothers me most is that many (if not most) EAs are unusually kind and dedicated people - but being a kind and dedicated EA doesn't pay off in the long run. All the interesting people keep themselves at distance in the theoretical/quantitative stuff or remain invisible at the periphery. At the same time, playing abusive office games, having connections stronger than actual competencies and gaining unearned advantages by exploiting the ideological bias ensures a speedy career. The entire NGO sector looks similar these days, but I find it saddening that so many smart contributors aware of the ideological hijacking couldn't prevent the entire movement from getting derailed.
Future Perfect is a pretty good column. At least some of Vox readers may contribute positively to EA - but it's one of many indicators of the open double standard. From what I've heard, many group leaders were strongly discouraged from engaging with media and taking initiative, but Vox (a US-centric, polarized medium known for its patronizing tone) is fine as the mainstream outlet. EAs don't really have a chance to discuss such issues and cast votes before things are decided on top with no or unclear justifications.
GiveDirectly was assumed to be less promising than other charities, and the very idea of supporting a specific demographic group (not necessarily the most vulnerable one, think about all the homeless middle-aged men) in a highly developed country made me lose any trust in them. Imagine poor Rakesh who's looking for the best use of every rupee he can donate to the fight against the pandemic: how can he feel knowing that it's going for a sort of random $1,000 donation to some lady from Phoenix or Boston? What GiveDirectly does might be (sometimes) helpful, but it's not EA.
Meh, there are dozens of similar examples and you probably get a general grasp of what's happening. I just hope that all the good folks guided by the actual desire to do the most good will secede in some way, leaving the intersectional activists in their echo chamber.
:<
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No.14812
>>14809
>>14810
Neither Jim nor Zero are defectbots or self-declaredly evil. Quite the opposite, they call people and practices they don't like evil and claim to be fighting evil as part of their flirting with Christianity. (With Zero in particular it is obvious that he really wishes he could be Christian. When he BTFOs Christians, it is because they are not living up to what he wants them to be.) Their flaw as writers is more that they are mind-killed by their constant signaling of virility in a way that colder, less macho and less Christian-trad-adjacent reactionaries like Moldbug and Land are not.
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No.14814
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No.14817
>>14814
Another incident: https://twitter.com/peefsmash/status/1292950826286223365
Pathetic. I intend to share all these examples, informing friends and other groups that the movement has been ideologically hijacked by the mob, and encourage them to be skeptical about EA's current recommendations. There's still value in following specific people and their research (the more concrete, the better), but at this point I declare zero trust in funds, incubators, community "health" specialists, PR teams, diversity officers and middle class women exporting cancel culture, patronizingly lecturing people all over the world. EA was supposed to be about doing the most good through the open investigation of difficult problems, yet the entire brand and work of many outstanding people is now being used for enforcing the toxic, censorious and divisive narrative.
If you have been doing some great work in EA and now feel betrayed - I'm really sorry for what happens to you, and I hope that your efforts will be recognized as aligned with the original intention of making the world a better place, not its "woke" caricature.
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No.14819
>>14809
>people like jim, kontextmaschine, mitigatedchaos, zero hp lovecraft, and the rest of our local self-declaredly evil defectbots wannabes.
I would love to see where any of these people declare themselves to be defectbots (or anything close to that). Not only does that not fit with my view of them (I don't follow Jim so I wouldn't know about him, I mean the others), but in general it seems like a ridiculous thing to admit, even and specially for a defectbot, saying "don't cooperate with me because I will always attempt to screw you over" is a good way to warn others about your parasitic ways, thus preventing you from being able to take advantage of them (it's also extremely self-defeating if you don't intend to consistently defect against others, making it a really odd claim regardless of one's intentions).
Seriously, if you dislike any of them, showing them effectively saying "I am a defectbot" is a REALLY good way of discrediting them, much like those of us who don't like Arthur Chu absolutely love his Dark Arts quote. You should be taking any opportunity to spread those quotes far and wide.
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No.14821
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No.14822
>>14806
What are the most and least woke Effective Altruist organizations? Also what does /ratanon/ think of this list?
https://reducing-suffering.org/donation-recommendations/
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No.14823
>>14822
OP's ( >>14806 ) examples give a fair perspective on what's wrong with the movement and which circles you should avoid. You should be able to identify people who are most likely to bully you, coordinate entryism, or de-platform speakers.
As a rule of thumb, for your own safety, stay away from things that are vague, social, focused on short-term, easily politicized and involving race/gender. Pay more attention to the rigorous and neutral research requiring actual skills and good will - rather than a specific skin color, set of genitals or sexual preferences desired by our virtue signalling corporate overlords.
Animal welfare, with the exception of people working on the cultured meat in the labs, is basically lost. Both criminal reform and global health have doubtful standards with intersectional undertones. Mental health is important but tends to attract abusive demagogues - think of the archetype of a white affluent female psychotherapist, devoid of any actual empathy and charging poor nerds for lecturing them on their supposed toxic masculine privilege. Long-term future is hard to predict, but makes sense as a cause area. It is also more resilient to the woke mobs, but sooner or later they will come for it.
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No.14825
>>14821
>For him to be canceled, by a vote of 6 vs. 1 out of eight at that, for a set of modestly controversial thought experiments – that is, the basis of all philosophy – conclusively relegate EA to yet another boring leftist idpol organization.
>It’s interesting to recollect how quickly this worm turned.
Oh, come on. A 20-person book club in Munich decided to uninvite him. That's bad, but it's not an action by "EA [as an] organization", and you can't spin a grand narrative from that single incident.
>Incidentally, that guy is the inventor of the eponymous Basilisk. And yes, he’s been canceled from EA too, along with many of the more interesting and “powerful” personalities.
Okay, but why, and when?
I know the "when" is 2018 at the latest, because it's mentioned in Kathy Forth's suicide note, which screws up the timeline in the blogpost. It's disingenuous to use that as an example of a supposed 2020 trend.
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No.14826
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No.14833
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
>>14825
From my personal experience, a major part of EA is (or soon will be) under the control of woke identitarians. Note that canceling Hanson was a decision made by a small, independent group represented by the SSC meetup organizer. If a ridiculous cancellation of one of the top rationalist thinkers takes place in such safe circumstances, imagine the games and purges within the larger organizations. I can assure you that the number of similar incidents over the last few years (many unknown to a larger audience) is pretty indicative of ideological hijacking.
In late 2018, I was still hopeful that the polarization on the middle/upper class left and the intersectional bullying will get resolved in a couple of years, or at least won't disturb the basic functioning of academia and promising initiatives.
It's 2020. Critical race theorists are now paralyzing intelligence agencies and the federal government's premier nuclear research lab:
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1293603545522900993
https://christopherrufo.com/essays/
How could be EA safe then? I'm worried that, one day, the "Effective Altruism" brand will alienate most of the intellectually honest people, practically detach from the concept of maximizing the positive impact, and become an additional burden to those genuinely interested in doing the most good…
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No.14848
I want an EA with less of >>14833 and more of nuclear power advocacy by way of >>14272.
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No.14867
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>>14806
Wow, so CEA responded to George Floyd's death and racial tensions in USA in fluent corporatese, by citing their report mentioning twenty-plus percent of staff identifying as queer/LGBTQ+. They also refer to DiAngelo's "White Fragility" paper in one of their talks.
And this is, ratanons, how you abandon your original mission, perpetuate the identity wars and "cure" people from altruism. I expect further evolution into another Evergreen State College - but worse, since this one would give the worst possible PR to the idea of doing the most good. Of course, they won't get such feedback in surveys or forum posts, since people are either fed up or afraid of speaking up.
In the meantime, I hope that somebody interested in actual cause prioritization skills will start doing something effective about the Rohingya and Uyghur genocides. You know, thousands of innocent people are dying in immense pain, seems like a good cause area to consider.
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No.14869
>>14867
>implying stamping out Islam is a bad thing
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No.14870
>>14867
>start doing something effective about the Rohingya and Uyghur genocides
How tractable is that? What would it look like?
>>14869
How bad is Uyghur Islam compared to Socialism with Chinese characteristics?
How bad is it to begin with?
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No.14942
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No.14946
>>14942
one of these charts includes forced sterilisation in reeducation camps as a result of injections that were deceptively presented and compulsory
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No.14950
>>14946
>forced sterilization is bad
Why?
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