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Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

futureofhumanityinstitute.org

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Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#161

Post by karma_pharmer »

Maro wrote: post #11

This 2023 incident around founder Nick Bostrom may have something to do with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Bostrom#1996_email_contro... From the wikipedia article: > In January 2023, Bostrom issued an apology for a 1996 email where he had stated that he thought "Blacks are more stupid than whites", and where he also used the word "niggers" in a description of how he thought this statement might be perceived…

Yeah but this does not explain

Starting in 2020, the Faculty imposed a freeze on fundraising and hiring

(note the date)

More likely the freeze and the smear have a common cause, rather than one causing the other.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#162

Post by karma_pharmer »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #37
exo-pla-net wrote: post #18

Seems the incompetent and curiously hostile Philosophy Faculty at Oxford killed FHI. > While FHI had achieved significant academic and policy impact, the final years were affected by a gradual suffocation by Faculty bureaucracy. The flexible, fast-moving approach of the institute did not function well with the rigid rules and slow decision-making of the surrounding organization. (One of our administrators developed a…

Surely it was Oxford, the institute older than most nations, being incompetent, and nothing to do with the easy money tap called Sam Bankman Fraud being thrown in jail. Oxford just seems like a easy scapegoat as they can’t just say “our biggest donor is in jail for the foreseeable future and we have no money left because we used it to buy a mansion [0]” [0] https://twitter.com/paulmainwood/status/1600433194691502081

They froze the institute "starting in 2020", three years before anybody suspected SBF was anything other than the Great Tech Messiah.

FTX didn't even get its initial funding until the last months of 2019.

I mean sure, FTX might be a stain on FHI's reputation now, but it certainly can't have been the initial cause of these actions by Oxford. The dates just don't work.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#163

Post by 77pt77 »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #81
esafak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. sbf was about that, but EA is not. Are there other cases of EA fraud?

Well, that's the point in question. For its critics, the whole enterprise is a misguided sham. See Leif Wenar's stimulating recent piece, 'The Deaths of Effective Altruism', which sees SBF less as aberration, than symptom. https://www.wired.com/story/deaths-of-effective-altruism/ I think EA was naive from the start, both in its unreflective moral realism, and its reduction of complicated questions of social theory do…

> “which charity saves the most lives?”

> “None of them,” said a young Australian woman to laughter. Out came story after story of the daily frustrations of their jobs. Corrupt local officials, clueless charity bosses, the daily grind of cajoling poor people to try something new without pissing them off.

Never fails to disappoint...

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#164

Post by [deleted] »

causal wrote: post #96
arduanika wrote: post #92

Good riddance to these ideologues. It's a shame that the announcement shows no trace of remorse for the crimes they inspired (e.g. at FTX) or the lives that have been ruined by the cults to which they lent academic legitimacy. Instead, their demise is chalked up to some bland moaning about "administrative headwinds". Realistically, we're probably only looking at a brief respite before they regroup under some other be…

That's a lot of vague vitriol, what exactly did FHI do? Genuinely curious.

[deleted]

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#166

Post by notahacker »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #134
notahacker wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A statement that Race X is "more stupid" than Race Y is almost tautologically racist. The idea that Nick denigrating an entire race as 'stupid' is "accurate and mild", whereas any suggestion that the statement contains racism requires a "license to denigrate" is truly through the looking glass...

He's not saying the race is stupid. He is saying that it is more stupid , an operant he expounds on, revealing his underlying meaning as both accurate and mild. A factual statement is not and is never denigration. If you and you specifically were the sole member of a race, for instance, his operant would rank your race below that of Black. This would be an observation, not a denigration. But, if you are not Black, yo…

> He's not saying the race is stupid. He is saying that it is more stupid

I think the fact that you're reduced to asserting that it's logically possible to assert that a group is "more stupid" without asserting that they are in any way stupid pretty neatly demonstrates my point about comparisons between races with disparaging adjectives being almost tautologically racist.

(The second half of your post is even more pointless to engage with. :)

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#168

Post by arduanika »

observationist wrote: post #20
FabHK wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Max Tegmark? I mean, some of their ideas are way out there, and obviously if not tempered can lead to bad consequences (e.g. SBF/FTX). But a hack?

Laying SBF at the feet of effective altruism is more than a little silly. It'd be similar to associating the Democratic National Party with Bernie Madoff, or Epstein with any of the universities and foundations he donated to. One of the things criminals do to hide their activity, assuage their guilt, or put on a good show is associate with legitimate organizations. Social organizations typically don't and probably sh…

You're correct that reputation laundering is a thing, but in the FTX case, the facts do not match that pattern. These were true believers.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#169

Post by johnthewise »

arduanika wrote: post #149
rurp wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite a leap to assume that SBF only turned to a life of crime because the EA movement lured him into it. There are legitimate criticisms of EA and I'm not personally a follower of the movement but your post comes off as way too generally dismissive. Many of the people involved seem to have good intentions and a lot of money has been donated to objectively good causes. The longtermism stuff is more squishy, but…

> to assume that SBF only turned to a life of crime because the EA movement lured him into it. It's not an assumption. It's a matter of record, understood by anyone who knows the basics of the FTX saga. SBF is a lifelong utilitarian, and his co-conspirators were also committed EAs. Anyone who obscures that fact is abetting the campaign of obfuscation. > Many of the people involved seem to have good intentions Yup. Th…

This type of argument can be used against pretty much any group that has ever existed, then either it's too broad and not a meaningful critique of the group itself or a critique of humans getting together in general.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#170

Post by n4r9 »

undershirt wrote: post #132
n4r9 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd interested to take a look if you have any further info about which moral philosophers and which works cite The Discarded Image? I admit I haven't read that one myself; my own take on him as a philosopher stems from reading Mere Christianity and summaries of Surprised by Joy, and not being aware of any references to his work by more recent philosophers that I've been interested in such as Chomsky, Zizek, or Dennet…

> I got a strong feeling that Lewis' arguments and exposition were guided by something other than logic, though they pretended to be following it. The trilemma is an example of this. One way to discover that we necessarily have worldviews outside of logic is to look at a statement like this, and realize it appeals to something outside of logic (feelings) to critique how someone else is only pretending to follow it.

I am not saying that I or anyone am perfectly logical or uninfluenced by feeling. Hume was exactly correct when he said the reason is the slave of the passions.

But - with his trilemma, Lewis claims "here is a logical argument for believing in the Christian god", and then presents a weak and illogical argument. It's difficult to know what to make of this except that Lewis was somehow blinded to the logical flaws.

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