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This “expected value” way of thinking about income and philanthropy was inherently flawed - it didn’t take into account the risk of preference shifting. If you

This “expected value” way of thinking about income and philanthropy was inherently flawed - it didn’t take into account the risk of preference shifting. If you do good now to do good later, and later you change your mind, you’ve still done good. If you smear shit now to do good later, and later you change your mind, you’re just left with a lot of smeared shit. What are the odds of a 50 year old having the same moral framework that they did when planning their future at 20? I rank it as rather low by default, not factoring in the corrupting influence of mega-wealth, or the road taken to achieving it.

tech_ken 3y ago
I think that the problem is even deeper, the idea of an actual concrete "universal expected moral utility" seems so shaky to me. I appreciate utilitarianism, and think it provides important and useful guidance, but the EA approach takes it way too literally. If you're trying to decide whether to fund research of vaccine A or vaccine B, sure the outcome variable is clearly well defined, but if you're talking about the sum total human happiness 100+ years down the line....I mean the error bars on that are so wide any honest error propagation is going to render your conclusions useless. It's the same grift as prosperity gospel stuff: provide tissue thin justification for its rich participants to feel good about the horrible things they do to get rich.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  > .I mean the error bars on that are so wide any honest error propagation is going to render your conclusions useless. Are any of the leading players in the movement scientists of any kind? I have worked with many people who while being obviously very smart, including engineers of many kinds and software developers, who don't have any idea about errors and compounding of errors. When I studied physics in the mid-70s a compulsory feature of every experimental report was the expected error in the result which had to be justified with reference to the expected errors in all of the measurement equipment and any other sources of error. When I got into industry this discipline seemed to be pretty much absent. In my 40 year career in electronic and electrical engineering I don't think I ever saw an engineer include any information on the expected error of a set of measurements even though most were familiar with the concepts of statistical curve fitting and so on. They were not much better than social scientists and would plot the results of an experiment in Excel, click the button to get a polynomial fit and accept the coefficients as gospel totally disregarding the R value. And most of them didn't care that the polynomial form wasn't even applicable to the data.
  - tech_ken 3y ago
    Don't even get me started on error bar usage in industry. I've seen Big 3 consultants charge several 0s for a regression analysis that I would give a C+ in a first year grad stats course. I can't imagine how any of EA's guiding lights could have used stats in a practical application and still want to hold it as the foundation of their entire moral outlook.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  Like the assumption that maximizing something is "good", even QALYs...
MichaelZuo 3y ago
Was there never any serious discussion about preferences shifting as they age? I had always assumed there was, and the issues were addressed, for there to be so much confidence in that 'plan'.
user3939382 3y ago
The Catholic church has an explicit teaching on this, which is, "you may not do evil so that good may come from it." Suggesting, as many already know/suspect, that ends vs means is a pretty classic philosophical question.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  This is one of the values of religion. Whether you believe in an omniscient man in the clouds or not, the practical day-to-day rules to live by gives people answers to these sorts of philosophical questions. This saves them the trouble, anxiety, and self-doubt that come from trying to work out the "best" answer for themselves.
  - fatherzine 3y ago
    FWIW, 'omniscient man in the clouds' is a strawman built by its enemies.
    - BobaFloutist 3y ago
      ...it is?
    - syedkarim 3y ago
      Are you saying that Christianity and Islam don’t require the belief in a supernatural being?
      - coldtea 3y ago
        In practice they never did. Their utility (for good or bad) came from being widespread moral frameworks, shared by an entire society, that you were taught to respect from birth, plus that fact that they weren't up for debate, except through very slow processes.
        soco 3y ago
        Just for the sake of debating I wanted to add that the entire basis for not debating those facts is because they belonged to a dangerous being in the clouds. Not saying that they should have been debated more, nor less, just that pretty much all societies based their moral codes on very scary supernatural being(s). Maybe because only fear makes humans collaborate in good times - thus basically turning the "good times" into a permanent "dangerous times"...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
JohnFen 3y ago
> What are the odds of a 50 year old having the same moral framework that they did when planning their future at 20? I'm older than 50 now, and I have certainly changed from when I was 20. I'm much more inclined (and able) to engage in philanthropic activities now than then.
civilized 3y ago
I'm sure this will be analyzed a lot from many legitimate different perspectives, but IMO the root fallacy here is the fetish for quantification. Sam said he would take a bet with a 50-50 chance of ending the world or making it "twice as good". The meaning of ending the world is obvious, but does it mean to make the world twice as good?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  The message I got from his answer to that question was that he didn't see an ethical problem with the idea the he has the right to put everyone else at extreme risk.
- bbatha 3y ago
  Its also just bad understanding of probability. Making bets to end the world isn't a one time deal, its an obvious repeated game. You don't just need to win one 50-50 bet, humanity needs to win all of them which approaches 0 probability.
  - ble 3y ago
    The focus on "rational" value maximization on individual bets is doubly blind: - First, you and I might have different utility functions which are based on valuing outcomes differently; if utility functions are different, there may not be a single "most rational" choice - Second, a single bet is a single bet, but investing in a company or following a specific policy is more like staking a gambler to make a sequence of bets.

tech_ken 3y ago

I think that the problem is even deeper, the idea of an actual concrete "universal expected moral utility" seems so shaky to me. I appreciate utilitarianism, and think it provides important and useful guidance, but the EA approach takes it way too literally. If you're trying to decide whether to fund research of vaccine A or vaccine B, sure the outcome variable is clearly well defined, but if you're talking about the sum total human happiness 100+ years down the line....I mean the error bars on that are so wide any honest error propagation is going to render your conclusions useless. It's the same grift as prosperity gospel stuff: provide tissue thin justification for its rich participants to feel good about the horrible things they do to get rich.

kwhitefoot 3y ago
> .I mean the error bars on that are so wide any honest error propagation is going to render your conclusions useless. Are any of the leading players in the movement scientists of any kind? I have worked with many people who while being obviously very smart, including engineers of many kinds and software developers, who don't have any idea about errors and compounding of errors. When I studied physics in the mid-70s a compulsory feature of every experimental report was the expected error in the result which had to be justified with reference to the expected errors in all of the measurement equipment and any other sources of error. When I got into industry this discipline seemed to be pretty much absent. In my 40 year career in electronic and electrical engineering I don't think I ever saw an engineer include any information on the expected error of a set of measurements even though most were familiar with the concepts of statistical curve fitting and so on. They were not much better than social scientists and would plot the results of an experiment in Excel, click the button to get a polynomial fit and accept the coefficients as gospel totally disregarding the R value. And most of them didn't care that the polynomial form wasn't even applicable to the data.
- tech_ken 3y ago
  Don't even get me started on error bar usage in industry. I've seen Big 3 consultants charge several 0s for a regression analysis that I would give a C+ in a first year grad stats course. I can't imagine how any of EA's guiding lights could have used stats in a practical application and still want to hold it as the foundation of their entire moral outlook.
BlueTemplar 3y ago
Like the assumption that maximizing something is "good", even QALYs...

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Was there never any serious discussion about preferences shifting as they age? I had always assumed there was, and the issues were addressed, for there to be so much confidence in that 'plan'.

user3939382 3y ago

The Catholic church has an explicit teaching on this, which is, "you may not do evil so that good may come from it." Suggesting, as many already know/suspect, that ends vs means is a pretty classic philosophical question.

SoftTalker 3y ago
This is one of the values of religion. Whether you believe in an omniscient man in the clouds or not, the practical day-to-day rules to live by gives people answers to these sorts of philosophical questions. This saves them the trouble, anxiety, and self-doubt that come from trying to work out the "best" answer for themselves.
- fatherzine 3y ago
  FWIW, 'omniscient man in the clouds' is a strawman built by its enemies.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    ...it is?
  - syedkarim 3y ago
    Are you saying that Christianity and Islam don’t require the belief in a supernatural being?
    - coldtea 3y ago
      In practice they never did. Their utility (for good or bad) came from being widespread moral frameworks, shared by an entire society, that you were taught to respect from birth, plus that fact that they weren't up for debate, except through very slow processes.
      - soco 3y ago
        Just for the sake of debating I wanted to add that the entire basis for not debating those facts is because they belonged to a dangerous being in the clouds. Not saying that they should have been debated more, nor less, just that pretty much all societies based their moral codes on very scary supernatural being(s). Maybe because only fear makes humans collaborate in good times - thus basically turning the "good times" into a permanent "dangerous times"...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

JohnFen 3y ago

> What are the odds of a 50 year old having the same moral framework that they did when planning their future at 20? I'm older than 50 now, and I have certainly changed from when I was 20. I'm much more inclined (and able) to engage in philanthropic activities now than then.

civilized 3y ago

I'm sure this will be analyzed a lot from many legitimate different perspectives, but IMO the root fallacy here is the fetish for quantification. Sam said he would take a bet with a 50-50 chance of ending the world or making it "twice as good". The meaning of ending the world is obvious, but does it mean to make the world twice as good?

JohnFen 3y ago
The message I got from his answer to that question was that he didn't see an ethical problem with the idea the he has the right to put everyone else at extreme risk.
bbatha 3y ago
Its also just bad understanding of probability. Making bets to end the world isn't a one time deal, its an obvious repeated game. You don't just need to win one 50-50 bet, humanity needs to win all of them which approaches 0 probability.
- ble 3y ago
  The focus on "rational" value maximization on individual bets is doubly blind: - First, you and I might have different utility functions which are based on valuing outcomes differently; if utility functions are different, there may not be a single "most rational" choice - Second, a single bet is a single bet, but investing in a company or following a specific policy is more like staking a gambler to make a sequence of bets.