4 ms·

"Effective Altruism" (centered around William MacAskill), the "Rationalist Movement" (centered around Eliezer Yudkowsky), the general billionaire philanthropism

"Effective Altruism" (centered around William MacAskill), the "Rationalist Movement" (centered around Eliezer Yudkowsky), the general billionaire philanthropism (most prominent being Bill Gates), the "Universal Basic Income" crowd (of which apparently OpenAI and Sam Altman are spearheading a research project), miss the greater context in which charity takes place: all charity is fundamentally ineffective, charity is the side effect of a failed system, charity will never bring revolution and even worse charity will actively suppress revolution. In a better system there would be no need for charity. Revolution used to mean pitchforks and guillotines (the French especially loved them), but today, funnily enough, that would be ineffective even if the people would be able to close their favorite streaming channel and wake up. Even in the 1950s it would have been ineffective. A revolution in the 1950s would have probably looked like this: 100% taxation over $50 million (in today's money). Like in a memory-constrained video game, once you reach 9999 coins you can't store more. We should have capped capitalism a long time ago, give the lucky winner a medal, and that's it. We could probably try today this idea, but (i) there is no coagulated we to make it work after at least 158 years of divisiveness and (ii) it's probably too late and it would also be ineffective. A revolution today would take completely other form from the past. After all, "you can't solve today's problems with yesterday's solutions". Today's revolution, able to wake up every single human from whatever slumber and coagulate them into a we, the people would probably be raising the lifespan to 1,000 years. Not 120, not 200, but straight 1,000, an x10 improvement just like the venture capitalists enjoy. The fact that today you might die at 30 and some guy dies at 90 doesn't seem too much of an issue, and you are willing to accept the system for some minor benefit, if any. But if you might die at 30 and some guy dies at 900, now that's when you start having issues. How to get to 1,000 years lifespan? 2-3 years ago I would have said mind-uploading, thinking that biochemistry has been surpassed by our magnificent, crystalline-structured silicon. After a global pandemic and some personal eye-openings, literally looking inside myself on the operating table, I would say that we won't be near biochemistry with our toys for the next thousands of years, and it won't actually be needed, we can learn to programatically interface with the cells and just say, top-down, "you, the cells, already know how to build an eye, you did it once, rebuild one here", don't scar, regenerate [1]. 1,000 year lifespan is achievable with 100% organ, tissue regeneration, and then the revolution begins, hopefully. Coming back to the point, an "effective altruism" would put all the billions and trillions into organ regeneration research, however, oddly enough, that's not even in the general discussion. [1] Michael Levin talk on bioelectricity at Stanford Chemical Engineering Colloquium, https://youtu.be/WM8bQWfmeB8?t=470 https://youtu.be/WM8bQWfmeB8?t=470

pas 4y ago
> charity will actively suppress revolution who knows. it seems there's pretty low correlation with charity spending and revolutions. probably CIA funding of opposition groups is more "impactful".
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  I meant that more in a state of mind way: you give food to an unhoused person, you feel good for the charity you are doing, they feel good because they forgotten how food tastes like, neither of you are interested in overturning the system that allows the greatest object in the universe as we know it, the human brain, to rot on a sidewalk: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."—Stephen Jay Gould.
  - pas 4y ago
    I think this hard love approach to forcing people to revolt doesn't really work. Just as bringing democracy by guns didn't, as strategic bombing didn't, etc. Giving someone charity makes both parties very aware that this is an exceptional one time deal, that might be repeated, but the default is no-charity. It takes time to build trust and alliances which is needed to then make a change.
Eisenstein 4y ago
> charity will never bring revolution and even worse charity will actively suppress revolution. ... > Revolution used to mean pitchforks and guillotines (the French especially loved them), but today, funnily enough, that would be ineffective even if the people would be able to close their favorite streaming channel and wake up. This strikes me as a strange way to say 'people are too happy to lead a violent revolt'. > We could probably try today this idea, but (i) there is no coagulated we to make it work after at least 158 years of divisiveness and What was before those 158 years? Unity? Until we get rid of nationalism, racism and religion divisiveness is going to be the rule, not the exception. > A revolution today would take completely other form from the past. Because the French revolution with guillotines was the same as the ones before it? > we can learn to programatically interface with the cells and just say, top-down, "you, the cells, already know how to build an eye, you did it once, rebuild one here", don't scar, regenerate [1]. 1,000 year lifespan is achievable with 100% organ, tissue regeneration, and then the revolution begins, hopefully. What? This could be on a sandwich board worn by the guy who in 2013 had to remove those Apocalypse 2012 stickers from his blacked out panel van. What strange, hollow rhetoric that post is.

pas 4y ago

> charity will actively suppress revolution who knows. it seems there's pretty low correlation with charity spending and revolutions. probably CIA funding of opposition groups is more "impactful".

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
I meant that more in a state of mind way: you give food to an unhoused person, you feel good for the charity you are doing, they feel good because they forgotten how food tastes like, neither of you are interested in overturning the system that allows the greatest object in the universe as we know it, the human brain, to rot on a sidewalk: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."—Stephen Jay Gould.
- pas 4y ago
  I think this hard love approach to forcing people to revolt doesn't really work. Just as bringing democracy by guns didn't, as strategic bombing didn't, etc. Giving someone charity makes both parties very aware that this is an exceptional one time deal, that might be repeated, but the default is no-charity. It takes time to build trust and alliances which is needed to then make a change.

Eisenstein 4y ago

> charity will never bring revolution and even worse charity will actively suppress revolution. ... > Revolution used to mean pitchforks and guillotines (the French especially loved them), but today, funnily enough, that would be ineffective even if the people would be able to close their favorite streaming channel and wake up. This strikes me as a strange way to say 'people are too happy to lead a violent revolt'. > We could probably try today this idea, but (i) there is no coagulated we to make it work after at least 158 years of divisiveness and What was before those 158 years? Unity? Until we get rid of nationalism, racism and religion divisiveness is going to be the rule, not the exception. > A revolution today would take completely other form from the past. Because the French revolution with guillotines was the same as the ones before it? > we can learn to programatically interface with the cells and just say, top-down, "you, the cells, already know how to build an eye, you did it once, rebuild one here", don't scar, regenerate [1]. 1,000 year lifespan is achievable with 100% organ, tissue regeneration, and then the revolution begins, hopefully. What? This could be on a sandwich board worn by the guy who in 2013 had to remove those Apocalypse 2012 stickers from his blacked out panel van. What strange, hollow rhetoric that post is.