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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

#381

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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.

Unless you're personally in the strike zone, that's not true. And one should also bear in mind that Mars is at no less risk of meteor impacts than Earth.

It’s not about Mars being lower risk but independent risk. Someone could decide to keep copies of important documents in their vacation home not because it’s less likely to have a fire, but because it’s less likely for both houses to have a fire.

I used the wrong word when I said meteor. They’re too small. A comet or asteroid of 100km diameter would raise the temperature of the surface of the Earth by hundreds of degrees and then there’d be decades of darkness. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001632872...

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

#382

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Declaring Mars a “nature reserve” would be completely unenforceable. Suppose you convince US Congress to pass a law banning Americans from sending humans to Mars, due to the risk of contamination to native Martian microbes. What happens when China says “now is our chance to show the world we’ve eclipsed the US by sending humans to Mars when they won’t“? Even though such a Chinese mission isn’t feasible today (an Amer…

> Declaring Mars a “nature reserve” would be completely unenforceable. Generally worked pretty well for Antarctica. A few research bases are permitted but colonization is internationally banned and not happening. BTW, colonizing Antarctica would be a lot easier than colonizing Mars. Far fewer technical challenges to overcome, and much more practical experience overcoming those challenges.

Many people who call for Mars to be declared a "nature reserve" aren't just calling for a ban on Mars colonisation, they are calling on a ban on crewed exploration – either of the planet as a whole, or at least of sites they view as "environmentally sensitive" (which basically turns out to be the most interesting exploration targets, and many of the sites which would most easily host crews). They are worried about microbial contamination, which is a rather different environmental concern from Antarctica, and requires much stricter limits on human activity.

When someone like Elon Musk talks about "colonising" Mars, all he's realistically talking about – at first – is a crewed research station, so not that different from what we have in Antarctica. And many people who want Mars to be a "nature reserve" are opposed to even that. Yes, Musk hopes that such a research station will eventually grow into a buzzing metropolis, but I think if that ever happens it is a long way off. Musk might live to see crewed research stations established, I very much doubt he'll live to see genuine colonisation, much as he enjoys publicly fantasising about that topic.

Even the ban on colonising Antarctica only really works because it is banning something no government wants to do anyway. Crewed exploration of Mars would be attractive in principle to governments because of the benefits for national prestige, getting in the history-books, outshining the competition – the same basic reasons why the US went to the Moon. Of course, that benefit has to be weighed against the immense cost – but costs aren't constant, with further technological and economic developments it is going to become more affordable.

All the groundbreaking exploration opportunities with Antarctica have already been used up, so governments don't have the same motivations there. And I think the first human visit to another planet, is going to be much more noteworthy and prestigious and memorable, than whoever was first to explore some big freezing cold island on Earth. A thousand years from now, most people will still probably remember who Neil Armstrong was; I doubt many other people from the 20th century would still be household names (I suppose Einstein and Hitler would be the other likely candidates)–its only been a century or two, but the average person has no clue whom the first explorers of Antarctica were.

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

#383
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrocodone has to be one of the best drugs known to man. I had a very small prescription for my wisdom teeth and I instantly understood the opioid dependency problem.

It's all about your body chemistry. I'm a redhead; red hair is a result of a mutation in the preopiomelanocortin (POMC) system, so opioids work funny on us. I've had hydrocodone/acetaminophen(paracetamol) pills, and they felt like... taking acetaminophen. No euphoria, not even increased pain relief. I quit after one dose, because what was the point in making myself constipated?

I dunno man. My mom and dad were both smack heads. They both went through recovery but had substantial relapses. My mom was as ginger as they come but really couldn't get off the horse. Dad found solace in terminal alcoholism. So.. I dunno. Thoughts?

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

#384
post #341

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Why is the ownership structure of YC important? You know how the internet works right? For better or worse, 'american' is the defacto standard on the internet, but please remember that only a small percentage of the global population is USian the in all probability the person you're speaking to isn't from the US.

The English (no pun intended) speaking population is more likely to be from the US than the global population. Disclaimer: Not English. Not American.

I would say that the us accounts for less than half of English speaking netizens.

UK, Australia, new zealand Canada already add up to a sizeable chunk of the US's population. Then add in 1% of India, or China (I assume some proportion has access outside the great firewall) and you've got a population bigger than the US.

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about your body chemistry. I'm a redhead; red hair is a result of a mutation in the preopiomelanocortin (POMC) system, so opioids work funny on us. I've had hydrocodone/acetaminophen(paracetamol) pills, and they felt like... taking acetaminophen. No euphoria, not even increased pain relief. I quit after one dose, because what was the point in making myself constipated?

I dunno man. My mom and dad were both smack heads. They both went through recovery but had substantial relapses. My mom was as ginger as they come but really couldn't get off the horse. Dad found solace in terminal alcoholism. So.. I dunno. Thoughts?

Booze doesn't work that way, and there are a lot of mutations that can cause gingerism - but the one I have, opioids don't do much of anything.

Never had the hard stuff and not inclined to try. But the oral ones might as well be cornstarch.

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this view of EA come from? Hatchet jobs written by TIMES and its ilk? Twitter personalities like Elon Musk who have so much social gravity that people perceive them as the spokesmen of anything they mention that you hadn't heard of before? Google "effective altruism" and the first two results are EA/Giving What We Can and GiveWell. Both of these organizations are meta-charities that help forward money or e…

I think “where does this view come from?!” outrage comes off as disingenuous. I think we both know that over the past couple of years the most prominent public “face” of the EA community has been William MacAskill, who went on a major donor-funded press tour to promote his ideas on longtermism through his book “What We Owe the Future.” For most of the general public, this was probably their first encounter with the e…

So you feel as though William MacAskill has been the "public face" of EA for the past couple years. That's possible, though it would make a little more sense if you had said one quarter of that time period, since his book was released in August.

I'd normally not want to get into personal accusations, but since you've already started your reply with one sentence ending in "disingenuous" and the next starting with "I think we both know" (which is infuriating), and to round it all out ended your comment with "...or else you're not arguing in good faith", I'll say it: I think you're projecting your personal Internet experience on others, and I think your personal Internet experience does not reflect that of the median person. MacAskill is not the face of EA. I think if you look at search data, you'll find that Peter Singer's popularity merely went from being ~100x MacAskill's to more like 10x during the book tour.

EA predates the notions in What We Owe the Future by many years. Present-focused charities like GiveWell were perhaps overshadowed in popularity by that book for a news cycle or two in late 2022. It happens. But the notion that that book or its author have been in any way the "most prominent" aspect of EA for the last couple of years is completely false. It's projection. In your mind, that's all EA is lately so it must be all it has ever been (hence the exaggerated timeline) and everybody else is just like you.

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

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/me also a brit. My go-to pain-relief used to be a product called Codis, which was soluble aspirin+codeine. It used to be available OTC, until about 8 years ago, then it disappeared. You can still buy paracetamol+codeine OTC ("Paracodol?). My understanding is that aspirin causes vasodilation, which causes more rapid absorption of codeine. Supposedly that's why Codis worked better than Paracodol. I don't know why they…

asprin + codiene sounds like a based painkiller combo. Who needs a liver tbh?

It's paracetamol that's hard on the liver, not aspirin or codeine.

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

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think “where does this view come from?!” outrage comes off as disingenuous. I think we both know that over the past couple of years the most prominent public “face” of the EA community has been William MacAskill, who went on a major donor-funded press tour to promote his ideas on longtermism through his book “What We Owe the Future.” For most of the general public, this was probably their first encounter with the e…

So you feel as though William MacAskill has been the "public face" of EA for the past couple years. That's possible, though it would make a little more sense if you had said one quarter of that time period, since his book was released in August. I'd normally not want to get into personal accusations, but since you've already started your reply with one sentence ending in "disingenuous" and the next starting with "I t…

Here is what you said to the other poster: “Where does this view of EA come from? Hatchet jobs written by TIMES and its ilk? Twitter personalities like Elon Musk who have so much social gravity that people perceive them as the spokesmen of anything they mention that you hadn't heard of before?”

Having re-read this, it just strikes me as extremely disingenuous and uncharitable (not to mention aggressive) particularly since you seem to know that there has been a huge amount of press around EA recently due to the MacAskill longtermism book, not to mention all the press around SBF and his longtermist fund.

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

#389
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not that that bothers me so much as the fact that many effective altruists do it so badly. [...] But effective altruists are as likely to talk about colonizing Mars as they are to talk about global warming. Are they doing it badly, or are you not understanding their arguments? AFAIK effective altruists want to colonize mars on x-risk grounds, which would explain why they want to prioritize that over global warm…

A Mars colony that simply puts humans on Mars is decades away. A Mars colony that puts a whole parallel self sufficient society on Mars with their own semiconductor manufacturing and so on is millenia away.

I would wager that if we get a established research colony on Mars, we're 100 years away from a mostly self-sufficient small city.

We're not going to have Mars colonized in a decade or two, but it's not going to take a thousand years, either. Probably. I'd say thriving colonies within a century or two.

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

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you feel as though William MacAskill has been the "public face" of EA for the past couple years. That's possible, though it would make a little more sense if you had said one quarter of that time period, since his book was released in August. I'd normally not want to get into personal accusations, but since you've already started your reply with one sentence ending in "disingenuous" and the next starting with "I t…

Here is what you said to the other poster: “Where does this view of EA come from? Hatchet jobs written by TIMES and its ilk? Twitter personalities like Elon Musk who have so much social gravity that people perceive them as the spokesmen of anything they mention that you hadn't heard of before?” Having re-read this, it just strikes me as extremely disingenuous and uncharitable (not to mention aggressive) particularly…

No! Gah! You're doing it again! I'm not being aggressive, I'm being harassed by somebody who keeps telling me what I "know"! Why do you insist on talking to me like this instead of just taking me at my word?

> ...you seem to know that there has been a huge amount of press around EA recently due to the MacAskill longtermism book...

I do not know this! I think I saw one article about it posted here on HN. I also might have read a post on somebody's substack about it a few months ago. I am not aware of any "huge amount of press", certainly not "recently". I looked into the search stats on it because of your comment. I didn't even remember the name MacAskill or much about his book before you brought it up. EA to me is still basically just malaria nets and other present-focused causes, and I can only assume that's what it is to most of the many, many people who have read Singer and not MacAskill and who donate to GiveWell year after year.

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