Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them • Hacker News Board

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#61

Post by thomk » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:16 PM UTC

YinglingLight wrote: post #58

YorkshireSeason wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many pro-choice people do you think are persuaded by Symmetrically, how many pro-life people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "woman-hater/sexist/misogynist" outside of Planned Parenthood? If you can't explain your argument in a calm, rational manner, You overestimate the efficacy of explaining in a calm, rational manner. As a university teacher with > 10 years experience, I can tell you with ex…

"An interesting article in The Atlantic talks about studies showing that liberals think in terms of fairness while conservatives think in terms of morality . So if you want to persuade someone on the other team, you need to speak in their language. We almost never do that. That’s why you rarely see people change their opinions... ...If your aim is to persuade, you have to speak the language of the other. Talking abou…

Excellent article, thank you. Thinking back to a few discussions i've had regarding the current political landscape with 'the opposition', this (albeit oversimplified) method checks out.

Thanks again. Of course Adams has his own political bias but at least he appears to be trying to bridge the gap here.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#62

Post by leetcrew » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:17 PM UTC

YinglingLight wrote: post #58

YorkshireSeason wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many pro-choice people do you think are persuaded by Symmetrically, how many pro-life people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "woman-hater/sexist/misogynist" outside of Planned Parenthood? If you can't explain your argument in a calm, rational manner, You overestimate the efficacy of explaining in a calm, rational manner. As a university teacher with > 10 years experience, I can tell you with ex…

"An interesting article in The Atlantic talks about studies showing that liberals think in terms of fairness while conservatives think in terms of morality . So if you want to persuade someone on the other team, you need to speak in their language. We almost never do that. That’s why you rarely see people change their opinions... ...If your aim is to persuade, you have to speak the language of the other. Talking abou…

> liberals think in terms of fairness while conservatives think in terms of morality

i don't think this is a very accurate characterization. for one thing, fairness itself is a moral value. however, i do think liberals and conservatives tend to have different moral systems. in broad strokes, liberals tend to have more of a utilitarian perspective, while conservatives tend to be more deontological.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#63

Post by Ensorceled » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:25 PM UTC

n4r9 wrote: post #47

Ensorceled wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask yourself this, do you disagree with the basic premise of the article, that the law of unintended consequences applies to charitable endeavors? If not, do you disagree with the ways they say it can manifest itself? Now, ask yourself, if you don't disagree, why did you write this? I know from actual experience that a large number of people, when their actions do harm, fall back on "I was just trying to help." I wis…

It should be clear from my post that I don't directly disagree with the premises of the article. I'm questioning its significance, novelty, effectiveness, and interest. > why did you write this? I was exploring a shared, unexplained feeling of discomfort. This is an intellectually and emotionally fulfilling thing to do. > I know from actual experience that a large number of people, when their actions do harm, fall ba…

It wasn't clear. My theoretical questions were to get you to answer your own question, which you started off with:

> I have the same feeling. It concerns me because I'm not sure how to differentiate between my subconscious conservatism and my instinctive backlash against cultishness and/or over-complication.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#64

Post by MrEfficiency » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:37 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #54

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #39

Well I read a bit, then thought "things like being verbose, generic, and over-guarded in offering advice and so wasting lots of readers time without making an impact on their behaviour"? If they'd given one direct piece of easily actionable advice the actual impact might have been far larger ... "So what?" - a Church sermon I heard well over decade ago, the speaker said basically if there's nothing that listeners wil…

Luckily, they do state the lessons to be learned up front: > In brief, it raises the importance of finding good mentors, consistently seeking advice and feedback from experienced colleagues, and ensuring you’re a good fit for a project before you take actions with potentially large or long-term consequences.

>good mentors

South East michigan is void of this.

The smart people enjoy their 6 figure jobs and go 'up north' to relax.

Ive found it especially hard to find more experienced and smarter people to vet Big Picture ideas. Engineering questions are easy, I can ask my friends. Finding business types that are ambitious and thinkers is almost an impossibility around here.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#65

Post by matt4077 » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:42 PM UTC

kineticdial wrote: post #7

I feel weirdly (perhaps irrationally) about the effective altruism people including 80,000 hours. I just can't shake the cult-y vibes they give off. Am I alone in this?

I'm pretty sure that it's the movement is a net positive for the world, because it attracts a different crowd (younger, STEM, etc) than altruistic endeavours traditionally do.

The basic drive to empirically evaluate one's actions is also sound, had been simmering in the "traditional" community for quite a while, and would have become more relevant in some way or another (eventually). If you look the output of GiveWell, to cite just one example, their deep dives on policies and charities make for fascinating reading.

Yet, of course, any such trend is bound to find people overdoing it, or cargo-culting it, or whatever. Just look at the split within the community to see this perfectly illustrated: there's one group that wants to focus exclusively on AI risks, because they assess it as having the potential to wipe out humanity (rendering the probability meaningless in their calculations).

And there is another group that wants to focus on animal suffering in the wild. Tadpoles, this group says, die in the billions each year, and the difference of their nervous system from humans' is just a question of degree.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#66

Post by arandr0x » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:45 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #48

blackflame7000 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately this can all be boiled down to the idea if working smarter not harder. Unfortunately mankinds definition of smart varies as as wildly as their actual intelligence

> working smarter not harder Not even. I think it's more about, what to work towards - i.e. the goal. I mean, feeding hungry people is definitely a worthwhile goal, but... you have to do it again, tomorrow. It's not a scalable solution.

What if feeding hungry people today is what it takes for them to feed themselves tomorrow? Africa currently has millions of entrepreneurs, and half the rare earth minerals in your computer's chips and a plurality of the beans for the daily cup of Starbucks you need to do your vastly more lucrative job with it come from there. Not only is the people of Africa not dying (or dying less fast) something that can pay dividends in the future, you directly benefit from it. (Most of the aid we send to Africa is not even remotely altruism, effective or not, although most of it is also not very effective.)

I think the goals of NGOs working in that space are generally in the right place. It's true that they seldom do anything scalable in the sense of transformational research or marked improvement in processes, but the structure (of funding) somewhat prevents them to. I think the most scalable thing we can do for poor countries right now is make information, education and food and essential medication as available and as cheap as possible for as much of their population as possible, and let these children's children save themselves.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#67

Post by pfortuny » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:57 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #54

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #39

Well I read a bit, then thought "things like being verbose, generic, and over-guarded in offering advice and so wasting lots of readers time without making an impact on their behaviour"? If they'd given one direct piece of easily actionable advice the actual impact might have been far larger ... "So what?" - a Church sermon I heard well over decade ago, the speaker said basically if there's nothing that listeners wil…

Luckily, they do state the lessons to be learned up front: > In brief, it raises the importance of finding good mentors, consistently seeking advice and feedback from experienced colleagues, and ensuring you’re a good fit for a project before you take actions with potentially large or long-term consequences.

Well, but that is not what the title presents, just the dual (what to do if you want to help).

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#68

Post by sullyj3 » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 1:01 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #35

kineticdial wrote: post #7

I feel weirdly (perhaps irrationally) about the effective altruism people including 80,000 hours. I just can't shake the cult-y vibes they give off. Am I alone in this?

No... I, for one, would really like to know what the actual (measurable, practical) effect of effective altruism is. I definitely hope that it's not just like, we do nothing but more effectively . I likewise question the efficacy of efforts like eradicating malaria. I can't help but feel all that money would be better spent on technology (not startups, but like fusion and other energy research, nanotech, space indust…

https://blog.givewell.org/2018/06/29/givewells-money-moved-a...

I feel like that pretty comprehensively answers your question. Givewell is a[n ea affiliated] charity which empirically evaluates the effectiveness of other charities, and aims to convince charitable givers to give to those they deem most effective. They've had a lot of success in this goal. Their top charities are listed and in depth reasoning for their evaluations are available.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#69

Post by zimablue » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

n4r9 wrote: post #26

kineticdial wrote: post #7

I feel weirdly (perhaps irrationally) about the effective altruism people including 80,000 hours. I just can't shake the cult-y vibes they give off. Am I alone in this?

I have the same feeling. It concerns me because I'm not sure how to differentiate between my subconscious conservatism and my instinctive backlash against cultishness and/or over-complication. The only thing I can put my finger on is this: those organisations - and this article - present themselves as being above-average rational and insightful. At least that's my impression. Yet many of these suggestions seem to be…

The history of the movement started in the Oxford Uni philosophy department. I could be wrong but having read a couple of the early books, I think the focus started much more on the ideas of: 1: you have an equal moral obligation to do good for all humans as you do for humans around you, having one without the other is not really logically justifiable 2: some charities are orders of magnitude more effective than others.

I agree somewhat with your sentiment with regards to where they are now, with a lot of their focus on far-future risk avoidance. That stuff can't really fit, because it can't be reasoned about very precisely/scientifically. It's gone from a movement with emphasis on measurement and scientific methods to having a lot of emphasis on things that can't be measured. I think part of the problem is literally it started with some of the brightest guys around and as it gets disseminated to general pop, they lose and distort the message.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#70

Post by mnx » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #50

mnx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 80000 hours targets a fairly specific audience. Their style is in general to be in depth and long winded.

I’m a long-time follower of 80000 Hours. I agree with your comment, but still found this particular post to be far too verbose. The advice borders on non-actionable far-mode thinking.

I haven't yet read this one, so it is certainly possible.