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Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

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Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#151

Post by strken »

gruez wrote: post #50
tablespoon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible things. > Should we not talk ourselves into believing into stuff? Should smart people specifically avoid changing their beliefs out of fear of "justify all kinds of terrible things"? The GP is talking about self-de…

Okay, but how does this translate into actionable advice? Nobody sets out to intentionally deceive themselves. Telling people that "we should not deceive ourselves" is basically as helpful as "don't be wrong".

How about "don't go against conventional wisdom unless you have a good reason; the more conventional the wisdom, the better the reason needs to be"? Possibly combined with "be humble and give subject matter experts some credit, an hour on Google Scholar doesn't mean you've learned everything".

If the conventional wisdom is "don't order research chemicals from a lab in China then self-inject them", then maybe a plan to get a peptide lab to manufacture cheap Semaglutide is dangerous, even if you can't explain exactly why it's dangerous (in this case it's probably pretty obvious).

If, on the other hand, the conventional wisdom is "eat 6 - 11 servings of grain and 3 - 5 servings of vegetables a day", but many nutritionists are recommending less grain and there's new research out saying that much higher vegetable intake is good, maybe a plan to eat more vegetables and less bread is good.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#152

Post by smegger001 »

walleeee wrote: post #95
yamtaddle wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've yet to see an argument for colonizing Mars for this purpose, that wouldn't be a better argument if the goal were instead "build robust, distributed bunkers on earth, and pay families to live in them part-time so there's always someone there". Cheaper, and more effective. Most plausible post-apocalyptic Earths would be far easier to live on than Mars. The remaining threats that wouldn't also be pretty likely to t…

> Most plausible post-apocalyptic Earths would be far easier to live on than Mars. thank you how are we supposed to build a second home on a dead, ruthlessly hostile planet until we demonstrate ourselves capable of stabilizing the biosphere and building a sustainable long-term civilization here Earth is easy mode compared to Mars

>how are we supposed to build a second home on a dead, ruthlessly hostile planet until we demonstrate ourselves capable of stabilizing the biosphere and building a sustainable long-term civilization here

because its unique challenges and constraints may make us develop technology that we wouldn't otherwise that may in turn out to be useful back on earth. Much of our technological advancements come from military research, where there was no civilian demand. We developed computers so we could break encryption, we developed the internet as a successor to arpanet a military network originally made to maintain command and control in event of nuclear exchange. standardized clothes sizing was invented to make uniforms more cheaply. satellites were invented so we could spy on our military rivals. the entire space program was a spin off of ICBM program. Nuclear power came from atomic bomb research, we have developed many advaced prosthetic due to injured veterans needing them. weather prodiction thanks to radar to detect enemy planes.

But what if we could have something less self destructive than war that would germinate new technologies? Thats what a reasons to colonizes space. space colonization gives us many of the same challenges war does without the need for mass loss of life. Needs for new materials, new means of generating power, new modes of transportation. space exploration will give us new frontiers to strive against rather than find better ways to murder each-other. the ease of earth doesn't provide those challenges. I can dig up my back yard throw seed on the ground and will have vegetables to eat in the fall but i have learned nothing, find a way to grow food from lunar or martian regolith and you just have invented a way to rapidly create new soil and solved earths soil erosion problems ans well as found new ways of removing toxins from contaminated environments.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#153

Post by dkqmduems »

gruez wrote: post #96
dkqmduems wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called science.

That's the same problem as before. Outside of maybe fundamentalist religious people who think their religious text is the final word on everything, everybody agrees that "science" is the best way of finding out the truth. The trouble is that they disagree on what counts as science (ie. which scientists/institutions/studies to trust). When the disagreement is at that level, casually invoking "science" misses the point…

Science doesn't care who does the science. It just takes time.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#154

Post by smegger001 »

LarryMullins wrote: post #107
WalterBright wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how are we supposed to build a second home on a dead, ruthlessly hostile planet until we demonstrate ourselves capable of stabilizing the biosphere and building a sustainable long-term civilization here Because we can afford to make big mistakes in terraforming a dead, ruthlessly hostile planet.

A few microscopic fungal-like spore things could throw a wrench in that. Now the planet is a nature reserve.

why?

fungel spores probaly are contaimination by what ever probe we sent there. any life evolving their would not be from any terrestrial evolutionary branch such as fungus

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#155

Post by [deleted] »

zozbot234 wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never give to any group that asks me for money. Far be it from me to second-guess anybody's giving (motes and beams and all that) but this rules out many of the most effective aid organizations, all of which are absolutely off-the-charts obnoxious about fundraising --- because it works.

> many of the most effective aid organizations, all of which are absolutely off-the-charts obnoxious about fundraising This doesn't seem to jive much with what's reported by charity evaluators like GiveWell, or with what kinds of charitable organizations get grants from more traditional but still high-impact philanthropies like the B&MGF. It's quite plausible that too much emphasis on fund raising among the general p…

[deleted]

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#156

Post by n4r9 »

gruez wrote: post #106
lbwtaylor wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there is a lot of money moving around, it seems inevitable that power structures will form around it.

That might be true, but there isn't exactly an "Effective Altruism Foundation" that all the donations funnel through. You basically have a bunch of random people that are donating to charities that are well regarded, with a few philanthropists here and there setting up foundations. You might be able to hijack organizations like givewell (ie. organizations that tell people which charities they should donate to), but t…

The Centre for Effective Altruism has a turnover in the tens of millions. Surely there are people with greater and lesser decision making abilities within that institution?

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#157

Post by WalterBright »

smegger001 wrote: post #154
LarryMullins wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few microscopic fungal-like spore things could throw a wrench in that. Now the planet is a nature reserve.

why? fungel spores probaly are contaimination by what ever probe we sent there. any life evolving their would not be from any terrestrial evolutionary branch such as fungus

All this terror about "contaminating" other objects in the solar system with terran life is just misguided. We should all hope to get some terran life established on them.

Heck, we need to build probes full of selected terran extremophiles and spray them into the Martian atmosphere.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#158

Post by smegger001 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #69
travisjungroth wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x-risk is existential risk, as in humans get wiped out. Some big ones are meteor impact, nuclear war and disease. The risk of those things ending all of humanity are greatly reduced with a second planet. They're not reduced with a desert colony.

> The risk of those things ending all of humanity are greatly reduced with a second planet. I can imagine a situation where that's true. But right now, for almost any situation, a series of super-bunkers is orders of magnitude cheaper and more effective. A lot of ridiculously destructive things can happen to Earth and it will still be a better place to live than Mars.

our earth has had impact events that no bunker would save us from. like the one that created the moon or the much smaller impact that created the Borealis Basin on mars would boil the oceans and melt the surface.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#159

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #157
smegger001 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why? fungel spores probaly are contaimination by what ever probe we sent there. any life evolving their would not be from any terrestrial evolutionary branch such as fungus

All this terror about "contaminating" other objects in the solar system with terran life is just misguided. We should all hope to get some terran life established on them. Heck, we need to build probes full of selected terran extremophiles and spray them into the Martian atmosphere.

1. Any existing life there is, at this point, highly improbable

2. If there is any, how could terran life be competitive with it if the existing life has evolved to match the local environment over billions of years?

3. If there is existing life, how could a biologist not be able to easily distinguish it from terran life?

4. If the life there is ancient and now extinct, terran life isn't going to interfere with that

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#160

Post by smegger001 »

WalterBright wrote: post #157
smegger001 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why? fungel spores probaly are contaimination by what ever probe we sent there. any life evolving their would not be from any terrestrial evolutionary branch such as fungus

All this terror about "contaminating" other objects in the solar system with terran life is just misguided. We should all hope to get some terran life established on them. Heck, we need to build probes full of selected terran extremophiles and spray them into the Martian atmosphere.

I personally agree but was responding to the claim that finding fungal spores would mean we would necessarily turn mars into a nature reserve and not touch it. i pointed out the a fungal spore wouldn't be martin but earthly in origin
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