My Left Kidney • Hacker News Board

Re: My Left Kidney

#321

Post by low_tech_love » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 7:29 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #319

low_tech_love wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you can’t measure objectively the context around these people and what causes that to happen. Why do so many people die of malaria in certain places but not on others? That points to the fact that it is actually possible to avoid these deaths, with the right effort. Then you might be tempted to think: well they don’t have the money to handle it, or the know-how; then you send them money and you send them spe…

For example, East Germany and North Korea had and have vastly inferior outcomes to West Germany and South Korea. No racism or darwinism required to see that. I'm not sure why you are so confident that racist conclusions are inevitable? You also seem to suggest that the facts are racist, but that we have to blind our minds to that reality? > [...] if you are naive enough to think that the numbers explain everything. O…

(I don’t know how to quote, sorry.)

1. I guess blaming the government is one alternative to blaming DNA, but what happens if the government changes and the problem remains? Over and over again?

2. You are the right, I can’t be sure that racist conclusions are inevitable, but that’s what I have experienced from people who fail to analyze the context with the numbers and to accept that a) you can’t explain everything and b) the numbers very often lie, are biased, manipulated, and/or simply incomplete.

3. The facts are not racist; your answer is exactly what I mean. You can’t get a causal conclusion from a post hoc analysis. Have you heard of eugenics?

By the way, thanks for the engaging conversation.

Re: My Left Kidney

#322

Post by nyssos » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 8:34 AM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #305

nyssos wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone in the "malaria nets wing", I think you're directionally correct, but overstating things. > it's quite obvious that the opinionated people who control the (huge!) purse-strings are gradually gaining organizational control of the movement This is to some extent true of Open Philanthropy, although the effect looks larger than it is because they're consciously committed to not throwing all of their resources…

Like I said, I don’t think EA is bad or that the situation is irreparable. I just think there are people within “the movement” who are taking it in a worrying direction. And by “taking it” I don’t mean they’ll brainwash everyone in the org, but I do believe they might succeed in capturing the EA brand and a lot of its organizational capacity towards their priorities. I think in the medium/long term, the Givewell wing…

> consider breaking off from the rest of the EA movement and recognizing that the brand now means something different.

Yes, this seems fairly likely to happen.

> the intentions of leadership really matter. And in any human organization that manages large sums of money and power, you have to have sharply-enforced defenses against charismatic leaders who say they’re your friends and share your priorities, but actually want to take the movement in a very different direction.

I don't think this is exactly the issue. Openphil's leadership is, as far as I can tell, sincerely not trying to dominate the movement. The problem is that they're such an important funding source for charities that they can't not do so: even if they would never actually withdraw funding to punish people, the mere fact that they could creates a chilling effect.

In principle the same dynamic could apply to GiveWell and global health charities, it's just that there aren't the same sorts of deep ideological differences there: e.g. maybe Alice thinks parasitic worms are the most important problem, and Bob thinks it's malaria, but they're always going to agree that both are extremely bad and should get significant funding.

Re: My Left Kidney

#323

Post by joy_void_joy » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #8

I respect the British organizers’ willingness to sacrifice their reputation on the altar of doing what was actually good instead of just good-looking. Surely their reputation is a factor in their ability to do good? Optics sometimes necessitate sacrificing the "mathematically superior choice" for one that's worse in the name of not pissing off a ton of people the support of whom you rely upon.

I'm a bit taken aback at the replies who say that EA never takes that into consideration. It had been actually exactly the kind of discourse I was seeing back in 2019 in the EA sphere. Actually, the reason this changed is exactly to avoid another SBF disaster: If you focus too much on consequentialism and convoluted reasons for why you're doing is the highest EV, you are incentivizing very unlawful and unwanted behaviours. EA pivoted to a more deontological framework to avoid those kind of dangerous reasonings at that point

On the object level, about your point, Scott alludes to it in his linked article: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-prophet-and-caesars-wif...

Re: My Left Kidney

#324

Post by sulam » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 3:10 AM UTC

jagraff wrote: post #190

sulam wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tour full of competitive cyclists would beg to differ with this analysis.

Cyclists who dope with EPO are raising their levels far beyond what is healthy in order to get their red blood cell count to superhuman levels. It has the side effect of massively raising your risk of stroke

My point is that cyclists dope with EPO precisely because the body doesn't produce enough for your oxygen needs. There is a cap, probably for good reasons as you say.

Re: My Left Kidney

#325

Post by matthewdgreen » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:31 PM UTC

nyssos wrote: post #322

matthewdgreen wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, I don’t think EA is bad or that the situation is irreparable. I just think there are people within “the movement” who are taking it in a worrying direction. And by “taking it” I don’t mean they’ll brainwash everyone in the org, but I do believe they might succeed in capturing the EA brand and a lot of its organizational capacity towards their priorities. I think in the medium/long term, the Givewell wing…

> consider breaking off from the rest of the EA movement and recognizing that the brand now means something different. Yes, this seems fairly likely to happen. > the intentions of leadership really matter. And in any human organization that manages large sums of money and power, you have to have sharply-enforced defenses against charismatic leaders who say they’re your friends and share your priorities, but actually…

I think the notion of “sincerity” should be viewed very skeptically here. Not because I believe you’re wrong about anyone’s intentions: but because intentions don’t matter. If I sincerely believe issue A is the most important issue in the field, and I sincerely believe my “obtain donor funds at all costs” strategy is the best strategy to pursue it, then I can end up dominating the movement without ever intending to do so. It takes a strong and explicit effort to prevent this from happening, and that defense won’t happen if everyone is more concerned about being amicable than about vociferously defending the mission.

And of course, once one branch of the movement dominates it, then you’re at the mercy of their continued sincerity. This means you have to assume they’ll always continue to behave sincerely, and their organization won’t be captured by opportunists in the future.