CB wrote:
Sorry - I exagerated a bit. I do not donate everything above my basic needs - still quite a good chunk but not everything.
I try to spend quite some time on error correction (and sometimes buy books instead of getting them from a library) - but in this realm I am still weighting that against, say, the impact I could obtain by donating to an animal charity instead. But I’m ready to do some spending if I feel there’s a good chance to know more and improve.
The problem here is rather that I am not sure subscribing to this forum will really allow me to improve.
I absolutely agree to your claim that EA has a lack of organized debate method, and could improve on fighting against bias. I could probably improve on that too, I think. I can agree with the “lacking methodology”.
However, to actually improve, I need practical advice on how to improve. Or an example: for instance, seeing a debate where I see that a specific claim very important in EA is not impactful (for instance, that donating to charities that do corporate outreach in factory farming), and seeing the methodology that led to this claim.
I want to point out that criticism of what exists currently is important but not enough - the way I personally work is that I need to see *something better *in order to update correctly. Then I can be inspired by that better approach.For instance, I read your criticism of The Scout Mindset - it’s interesting, there are good points, for instance that the examples she gives could be really biased. But what would add even more value to your post is recommending a book which does the same thing but better (so basically, a book about how to get better at updating how we view the world, written in a clear, streamlined way, with examples and practical advice - just more rigorous).
I really like to improve. But I need practical stuff for that - and I asked for it and still feel you didn’t answer that (besides taking up a debate policy - you also made a list of actions but with no links to go deeper).
I fear it could prove difficult for you to spread your ideas even further without a greater focus on that part.
But I come here and say I think EA is wrong about important issues
By the way, have you issued claims about EA being wrong on its list of priorities ? You have done so on methodology - which is important, but not the most engaging topic, so few people interacted with it (which is too bad). But have tried to make more specific claims, like “EA is wrong about putting effort on factory farming” ?
I have a very limited willingness to respond to posts at the EA forum where I won’t speak due to the new licensing rules. But I have some things to say about this and I don’t like my discussions being interrupted in the middle when neither party wants to quit. But don’t expect me to say much more if you don’t come to the CF forum.
I wrote: Effective Altruism Is Mostly Wrong About Its Causes
I wrote: Effective Altruism Hurts People Who Donate Too Much
As my considered, long-held philosophical opinion, I don’t believe that animals are capable of suffering, so all the animal welfare charity work is misguided. However, factory farms have downsides, such as negative impacts on human health (though other food health issues like vegetable oil may be comparable or worse). But a lot of activism related to factory farms is counter-productive even on the premise that factory farms are super bad.
I have attempted to debate this with vegans and animal welfare advocates, but have not found anyone willing to debate or to give any literature cites arguing for their side which address key issues. I tried to ask some questions and couldn’t get meaningful answers from anyone, though EA was not one of the places I asked at the time. I have an animals blog category with information about this.
I didn’t bring animal welfare up at EA yet because I predicted that people would just yell at me or downvote and not engage, and it might derail all my discussions on other topics, and it might get me banned from the forum. It was on my list of things to maybe bring up later after trying to discuss topics like debate methodology and error correction. I also figured that anyone who cared what I think could search my blog or do a google search like Elliot Temple animal welfare – I’ve already made public statements on this issue and a variety of other issues that EA cares about.
On a related note, I wrote a few articles for Alex Epstein’s Center For Industrial Progress and helped him with research, and I have relevant articles sharing some of my views that disagree with EA related to technology, energy, capitalism, classical liberalism, etc. But I don’t know any productive way to get people to discuss or debate those issues. Actually I stopped working with Alex because he doesn’t have error correcting Paths Forward either. Meanwhile, Alex resorted to offering large amounts of money to prominent opponents to have short, verbal debates with him, but that was more about publicity than truth seeking. Bill McKibben debated Alex for $10,000 but Al Gore wouldn’t debate for $100,000.
For some book recommendations, Eli Goldratt is far better than Julia Galef. The Goal, The Choice, and It’s Not Luck are most relevant for learning about thinking processes. Karl Popper is much better too but is complex/intellectual/philosophical/academic. My work is also better (IMO) but not currently streamlined in the way you want. If you learned it then helped streamline it so people would use it instead of stuff like Scout Mindset, that could do a lot of good. Streamlining is one of the many things I’d like to do more of but I have way too many things to do and also I’m not a great culture fit with EA so my own streamlining won’t necessarily work well for the EA community. None of these resources are specifically about Bayesian updating because they disagree that Bayesian updating is the correct approach to thinking.