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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

#211

Post by anonymouskimmer »

WalterBright wrote: post #159
WalterBright wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To answer part 2 with just one example: The native life of Mars, if it still exists, would exist in a state of homeostasis with its environment. It would have to in order to still remain existent. If terrestrial organisms were capable of replicating under martian conditions, they could easily eat everything up and then die off. Never quite getting the time necessary to adapt to the ecological limits of their new habitat. And by this process driving the native life to extinction as well.

To answer part 3: We're still discovering new kingdoms of life on Earth (though it's unlikely we'll discover new domains). If localized panspermia exists within our solar system (from meteor impacts or the like) it's possible martian life and terrestrial life are related enough for the martian life to fit within the already existing family tree of terrestrial life. https://astronomy.com/news/2021/05/did-life-on-earth-come-fr...

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

#212

Post by droopyEyelids »

kazinator wrote: post #199
jfengel wrote: post #12

The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments. 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. Once that happens, it can easily spiral out from there. Peopl…

[flagged]

The point of a scam is that you fall for it due to a moral failing not a lack of aptitude/stupidity. In a scam people use their own intellect to justify chasing after some appetite, so smarter people just convince themselves harder.

EA is a scam that uses "the ends justify the means" as the temptation, and that's why people are into it.

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

#214

Post by droopyEyelids »

camillomiller wrote: post #205

EA can be the scum of Earth and I wouldn’t be surprised that this kind of group could be as it sounds cultish and self-aggrandizing. But conflating their wrongdoings right away with the refusal of monogamy and the practice of polyamory is so annoying and conservative and plainly wrong. It also implies that these practices are one step removed from harassment, which is infuriating. It’s exactly like conflating homosex…

In a perfect world I agree with you, but at some point you have to ask yourself why non-monogamy keeps going out of style after periods of acceptance. Even with a religion justifying it, Mormons gave up polygamy!

I think it's because polygamous relationships lend themselves to manipulative and abusive behavior more easily than monogamous relationships do. Over time that increase in probability of negative outcomes turns into social change and prescription against it.

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

#215

Post by senderista »

gnramires wrote: post #174
jfengel wrote: post #12

The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments. 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. Once that happens, it can easily spiral out from there. Peopl…

I am an EA (in the sense that I believe in the importance of some general principles of the movement, like trying to do the most good, and use data when available -- I don't participate in any organization directly). What I think is the most promising feature of EA is openness to criticism and trying to improve the movement itself. I think SBF was a wake up call and many people in the movement should take note that t…

What’s wrong with fraud if it has positive expected utility? At least if you’re an avowed act utilitarian like SBF.

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

#216

Post by WalterBright »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #211
WalterBright wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To answer part 2 with just one example: The native life of Mars, if it still exists, would exist in a state of homeostasis with its environment. It would have to in order to still remain existent. If terrestrial organisms were capable of replicating under martian conditions, they could easily eat everything up and then die off. Never quite getting the time necessary to adapt to the ecological limits of their new habi…

2. They'd never eat all of it. Also, it the distribution of either form will never be even across the planet. There will be "islands" of one or the other.

3. Biologists are easily able to determine if they are new kingdoms are not. They're also able to estimate how long ago divergence from a common root happened.

There are many, many examples of parallel evolution in terran biology, but none of them are confused with each other. It's absurdly unlikely that a terran modern amoeba will be confused with a Martian amoeba.

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

#217

Post by runako »

teraflop wrote: post #86
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #61

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. I came to the same conclusion after a group of my friends got involved with the local rationalist and EA community, though for a different reason: Their drug habits. They believed themselves to have a better…

I'm reminded of a fascinating series of Reddit threads, starting back in 2009, from somebody who convinced himself he "could handle anything once" and decided to try heroin, only to rapidly spiral out of control: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wef6...

This thread, and the linked AMAs, are amazing. Thanks for posting.

(Incidentally, I don't really care if they are 100% true or near-true or simply entirely plausible.)

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

#219

Post by travisjungroth »

goatlover wrote: post #111
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.

None of those things would make Earth less hospitable than Mars. A desert colony would still be better off than trying to survive on Mars, particularly once Earth's resources are cutoff. Mars is far more hostile than anything likely to happen to Earth over the next hundred million years.

It's not about hospitable. It's about survivable. There are large enough meteor strikes where you'd be better off on a self-sustaining Mars colony than anywhere on Earth.

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

#220

Post by klenwell »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #206
jfengel wrote: post #12

The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments. 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. Once that happens, it can easily spiral out from there. Peopl…

About fifteen years ago I got involved with the Skepticism movement. It was great to meet so many seemingly rational people and there was excitement that the movement seemed on the verge of growing large enough to make a paradigm shift in how society acts. But after about a year, I started to really sour on it as I could see more and more things becoming rational by decree and thus beyond question. These were suppose…

I have a lot of sympathy for skeptics but this is the first thing that comes to mind the idea of Skepticism as a movement comes up:

A few years ago, he told me, he went to a skeptics’ conference in La Coruña, Spain. He was walking down some stairs one afternoon, not long after investigating the statue of a local saint, which was said to protect those who embrace it, when his left leg suddenly crumpled beneath him. “It wasn’t like I fell and broke my leg,” he said. “It was more like I broke my leg and fell.” The other skeptics gathered around as he writhed in agony. When he told them, between gasps, that he thought he had broken his leg, they were dubious. “You know, that might just be a sprain,” one of them suggested. Another told him to try wiggling his toes. It wasn’t until Nickell lifted his leg, revealing that it was bent at a grotesque angle to his foot, that they believed him.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/12/23/waiting-for-gh...

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