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EA seems very fragile. The opposite of robust. First of all you have the potential problem of it being reductive (if one only looks at statistics) by discarding

EA seems very fragile. The opposite of robust. First of all you have the potential problem of it being reductive (if one only looks at statistics) by discarding things like lived experience. You might just end up sending a million malaria nets to Africa which might contaminate the wildlife. Then you have the problem that you talk about that high income, smart nerds can have absolutely unhinged theories about how the world is going to develop. Ethical behavior doesn’t take much philosophy. Be good to your family. Be good to your friends. Be good to your community. Be good to people who you for some ideological reason think that you should be good to or serve (here philosophy reintroduces itself). Be decent to people who are reasonable. It’s much simpler, intellectually speaking, to figure out if you are on the right track by using interactions as cues. Following through might be more difficult.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> Be good to your family. Be good to your friends. Be good to your community. Be good to people who you for some ideological reason think that you should be good to… Be decent to people who are reasonable. That’s easy. More challenging is being good to everyone, always. People you don’t like. People who push your buttons or aggravate you. Your estranged family member. The foolish man. The obnoxious bore. The guy who has polar opposite political beliefs. Try it for a day.
pjscott 4y ago
> You might just end up sending a million malaria nets to Africa which might contaminate the wildlife. EAs have long since internalized this idea, and do actually look at the reality on the ground. For example, here's a citation-laden summary of the empirical evidence that those malaria bed nets are helping, both on net and on the margin: https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/insecticide-treated-nets https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/in...
nmca 4y ago
But this doesn't get you to "be vegetarian" or "stop torturing the kids in that ritual with the bullet ants", both of which are pretty obviously right in any framework that doesn't overweight the action and values of your peers and family.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

> Be good to your family. Be good to your friends. Be good to your community. Be good to people who you for some ideological reason think that you should be good to… Be decent to people who are reasonable. That’s easy. More challenging is being good to everyone, always. People you don’t like. People who push your buttons or aggravate you. Your estranged family member. The foolish man. The obnoxious bore. The guy who has polar opposite political beliefs. Try it for a day.

pjscott 4y ago

> You might just end up sending a million malaria nets to Africa which might contaminate the wildlife. EAs have long since internalized this idea, and do actually look at the reality on the ground. For example, here's a citation-laden summary of the empirical evidence that those malaria bed nets are helping, both on net and on the margin: https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/insecticide-treated-nets https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/in...

nmca 4y ago

But this doesn't get you to "be vegetarian" or "stop torturing the kids in that ritual with the bullet ants", both of which are pretty obviously right in any framework that doesn't overweight the action and values of your peers and family.