In other words, self sacrifice is expected from me to the extent, that my life would suck. No, thanks.
Specifically, the issues about children:
I want to have them.
Apart from my psychological need—do the damned EA know what they are doing ? Is it really that helpful, that western middle class should have even lower population growth, than there is know ? Some people predict, that Europe, as my (our ??) children will know it, will be Islamic. I hope I will not offend the muslim rationalists, I know there are some on this site. Anyway, the culture currently associated with Islam does not seem to me like truth-seeking-friendly. It certainly will fix itself later, like Christianity fixed itself from the bigotry stage in cca 600 years. But do we really want to withdraw from the population battle entirely ? (OK, the word battle probably does not attract You altruist folks, but I do not know the other way to say it). I can imagine the counterarguments, that spreading memes inside familes is not that efficient, that children often rebel. And that memes can be spread outside the family. Well, good luck turning the significant portion of Muslim imigrants into rationalists ! USA is different from EU, but I guess withdrawing middle class from children bearing pool there is also no victory.
I mean, I do not force anybody to have children if they do not want to. It is a lot of work and resources.
But to guilt anybody into not having them ? There are way too many people in that cathegory, who are lazy to have them. Why adding another incentive by making it virtuous ?
Prominent EA Julia Wise and her husband have decided to have kids. IMO, a good way to think about EA is that everyone makes their own trade-off between their own quality of life and the quality of life of others. You can also think of helping people in terms of scoring points.
I think some individual EAs may very reasonably decide that it’s not worth it for them personally to have children. But part of the strength of the movement, that attracts people, is the message that people can achieve a lot without great personal sacrifice. I wonder where that message got lost.
But part of the strength of the (EA) movement is the message that people can achieve a lot without great personal sacrifice. I wonder where that message got lost.
Hm, are You asking why I did not notice that message, or why did it, objectively, get lost ?
I will answer the first part, why I never noticed such a message.
Short after learning, that EA exist, my CFAR friend, who is dating an EA, told me about a disagreement she had with her boyfriend. He did not not want her to go her best friends wedding, because travel expenses and time spent could be used better. (Although he later admitted it was a half joke from his side). She also told me, he periodically scolds her, her temperament is too prone to hapiness, which makes her less understand suffering, which makes less incentive for her to work on preventing it. That was not a joke.
I had some shocks at the EA facebook group. OK, Ben Kuhn complains that EA fb group is stupid these days.
I was told that supporting less than optimal charity is immoral. I translate it into examples, that supporting any Slovakian charity is immoral, because money are better spent on AMF. Supporting this baby is probably even more immoral than my favourite Slovakian charity. If the example involved my baby, it was immoral to have the baby in the first place. I switly left the facebook group, but after my departure, I saw an afterdiscussion, that what a pity we made Barbara leave, these truths should not be revealed to newcomers.
I spend 2 or 3 nights reading EA online stuff to determine, whether these interactions were outliers and came to conclusion they were not. Ben Kuhn does not convince me otherwise in his article. The article also confirms, that the pressure to have no children is felt by some. You may decide to have them, but the sentiment is :Aye, I am a sinner !
The peer pressure You get from these folks is overwhelmingly guilt inducing. I perceive the movement as self destructive and not sustainable.
There is an identifiable homogenous movement? I’ll gladly adopt the good ideas and apply them as it suits me, forget about the movement if it consists of self-handicapping pathologically literal people. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Peer pressure is a strong thing. I do not want to have a peer pressure of self-handicapping pathologically literal people on me, but they are EA mainstreem as far as I can tell. Therefore I want to keep distance from EA as “folks to hang out with”. I, for instance, hope that LW meetup groups in Bratislava and Vienna will remain sensible places for me to go.
Yes, there is an identifiable homogeneous movement. Those people are the reason I don’t actually tell most of my IRL friends that I have a LessWrong account. These kinds of people are the ones defining the reputation of LessWrong, rationalism, effective altruism, MIRI, CFAR, and every associated whatever.
For me, EA is one reason among many for not having children. I doubt it would convince me alone, but I might say it did if I wanted to appear virtuous.
Seems like EA could be yet another destructive Western superstimulus, although unlike many others it generates a lot of utility in other parts of the world. Still, maybe avoiding self-destruction could be wiser in long run—you know, just in case the Friendly AI fails to materialize for another 20 years or more.
Some people also take regular exercise too far. Does that make it a bad thing? If you’re actually being self-destructive, then that’s clearly not optimal even from an extreme altruist perspective because you will be most effective and productive when you are happy, healthy, and motivated. Consider how well many top companies like Google treat their employees.
This seems to be a common misconception about effective altruism for some people.
I once told a person about effective altruism and this person said to me:
Have you reduced your diet to rice, beans, spinach, water, and maybe a multi-vitamin? That would provide all the essential nutrients you need to survive, and at the same time free up some of the money you were “wasting” on frivolous luxury eating beef, chicken, cheese, etc. Have you moved into the smallest, cheapest housing available? Did you sell your car and now rely solely on walking or biking to get around so you can donate all that money to the people who need it to survive?
This is a bit puzzling to me because it’s quite clear that this is not an optimal lifestyle especially for effective altruists because you want to continue giving for as long as possible. The effects on your mental health and the burnout risk is not worth the small amount of money you could save by possibly sacrificing all your future donations.
“Is it really that helpful, that western middle class should have even lower population growth, than there is now”
Like seriously. I don’t think effective altruism will do too much damage to the already abysmal fertility rate of the Western world, but it sure isn’t helping! I’m disturbed that may highly intelligent individuals have declined having children in favor of maximizing QALYs.
I do have to say, I’ve never understood the European/Western liberal (in the broad classical sense, not the “social democratic sense”, but more strongly among social democrats) impulse to devalue one’s own culture and values so very much that one would rather go extinct in the process of helping others than survive in any form.
Yes, our planet cannot currently sustain a population of 9 billion (projected population peak in 2050) living at Western standards of income/consumption. Population reduction and/or (inshallah!) space colonization are necessary for humanity to live sustainably. This does not mean that we should segregate the species by belief into “Those who believe in sustainability”, who then go extinct from non-breeding, and “Those who believe in having as many babies as possible”, who then suffer an overpopulation crisis right quick.
I do have to say, I’ve never understood the European/Western liberal (in the broad classical sense, not the “social democratic sense”, but more strongly among social democrats) impulse to devalue one’s own culture and values so very much...
I think you are confusing correlation for causation. I don’t think the sustainability movement is largely responsible for declining birth rates, but rather that Western culture values many other things OVER child rearing, andmore advanced civilization requires delaying child birth until later. Most of the adult couples I know who are childless aren’t childless for ethical reasons, but instead for things like careers,etc. This isn’t a devaluing of culture, its the expression of it.
Hence, France managed to bring back their declining birth rates by making it easier to have kids, so the trade-off between (for instance) career/family is lessened. I’d be happy to see other first world countries address the problem in similar ways.
Yes, our planet cannot currently sustain a population of 9 billion (projected population peak in 2050) living at Western standards of income/consumption. Population reduction and/or (inshallah!) space colonization are necessary for humanity to live sustainably.
Do you expect space colonization before 2050? Anyway, historically colonization didn’t significantly reduce homeland population size.
Extremely difficult to forecast, since we’re already in political turmoil in many parts of the world. I can’t really say what sorts of governments will be in power by 2050.
We may be able to create stable colonies off-planet, and we almost certainly will be able to in 100 years, barring total nuclear war or self-replicating paperclips eating the planet or something. What we don’t have the technology to do is to move a significant fraction of Earth’s population off-planet—that would cost in the high trillions of dollars even at cargo launch rates to LEO, and human-rated launches to any of the places we might actually want to colonize are much more expensive. Economies of scale could improve this, but not enough.
Space elevators or one of their relatives might make this more attractive in a “not burning all of Earth’s available hydrocarbons” sense, but the energy balance is still pretty daunting.
We may be able to create stable colonies off-planet, and we almost certainly will be able to in 100 years
Earth-dependent outposts, e.g. an ISS on Mars, possibly yes, at great financial expenses and risk for those who would live there. Self-sustaining colonies, no.
It is interesting, what people inside EA find troubling, compared to people outside. (I do not identify myself as EA).
For me, the most repellent things are mentioned here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/j8n/a_critique_of_effective_altruism/#poor-psychological-understanding
In other words, self sacrifice is expected from me to the extent, that my life would suck. No, thanks.
Specifically, the issues about children:
I want to have them.
Apart from my psychological need—do the damned EA know what they are doing ? Is it really that helpful, that western middle class should have even lower population growth, than there is know ? Some people predict, that Europe, as my (our ??) children will know it, will be Islamic. I hope I will not offend the muslim rationalists, I know there are some on this site. Anyway, the culture currently associated with Islam does not seem to me like truth-seeking-friendly. It certainly will fix itself later, like Christianity fixed itself from the bigotry stage in cca 600 years. But do we really want to withdraw from the population battle entirely ? (OK, the word battle probably does not attract You altruist folks, but I do not know the other way to say it). I can imagine the counterarguments, that spreading memes inside familes is not that efficient, that children often rebel. And that memes can be spread outside the family. Well, good luck turning the significant portion of Muslim imigrants into rationalists ! USA is different from EU, but I guess withdrawing middle class from children bearing pool there is also no victory.
I mean, I do not force anybody to have children if they do not want to. It is a lot of work and resources. But to guilt anybody into not having them ? There are way too many people in that cathegory, who are lazy to have them. Why adding another incentive by making it virtuous ?
Prominent EA Julia Wise and her husband have decided to have kids. IMO, a good way to think about EA is that everyone makes their own trade-off between their own quality of life and the quality of life of others. You can also think of helping people in terms of scoring points.
FYI, her last name is just Wise.
Ack! Sorry!
I am glad to hear it, because they were the most annoying example for me before. Good for her / them.
I think some individual EAs may very reasonably decide that it’s not worth it for them personally to have children. But part of the strength of the movement, that attracts people, is the message that people can achieve a lot without great personal sacrifice. I wonder where that message got lost.
Hm, are You asking why I did not notice that message, or why did it, objectively, get lost ? I will answer the first part, why I never noticed such a message.
Short after learning, that EA exist, my CFAR friend, who is dating an EA, told me about a disagreement she had with her boyfriend. He did not not want her to go her best friends wedding, because travel expenses and time spent could be used better. (Although he later admitted it was a half joke from his side). She also told me, he periodically scolds her, her temperament is too prone to hapiness, which makes her less understand suffering, which makes less incentive for her to work on preventing it. That was not a joke.
I had some shocks at the EA facebook group. OK, Ben Kuhn complains that EA fb group is stupid these days. I was told that supporting less than optimal charity is immoral. I translate it into examples, that supporting any Slovakian charity is immoral, because money are better spent on AMF. Supporting this baby is probably even more immoral than my favourite Slovakian charity. If the example involved my baby, it was immoral to have the baby in the first place. I switly left the facebook group, but after my departure, I saw an afterdiscussion, that what a pity we made Barbara leave, these truths should not be revealed to newcomers.
I spend 2 or 3 nights reading EA online stuff to determine, whether these interactions were outliers and came to conclusion they were not. Ben Kuhn does not convince me otherwise in his article. The article also confirms, that the pressure to have no children is felt by some. You may decide to have them, but the sentiment is :Aye, I am a sinner !
The peer pressure You get from these folks is overwhelmingly guilt inducing. I perceive the movement as self destructive and not sustainable.
There is an identifiable homogenous movement? I’ll gladly adopt the good ideas and apply them as it suits me, forget about the movement if it consists of self-handicapping pathologically literal people. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Peer pressure is a strong thing. I do not want to have a peer pressure of self-handicapping pathologically literal people on me, but they are EA mainstreem as far as I can tell. Therefore I want to keep distance from EA as “folks to hang out with”. I, for instance, hope that LW meetup groups in Bratislava and Vienna will remain sensible places for me to go.
Yes, there is an identifiable homogeneous movement. Those people are the reason I don’t actually tell most of my IRL friends that I have a LessWrong account. These kinds of people are the ones defining the reputation of LessWrong, rationalism, effective altruism, MIRI, CFAR, and every associated whatever.
For me, EA is one reason among many for not having children. I doubt it would convince me alone, but I might say it did if I wanted to appear virtuous.
Seems like EA could be yet another destructive Western superstimulus, although unlike many others it generates a lot of utility in other parts of the world. Still, maybe avoiding self-destruction could be wiser in long run—you know, just in case the Friendly AI fails to materialize for another 20 years or more.
Some people also take regular exercise too far. Does that make it a bad thing? If you’re actually being self-destructive, then that’s clearly not optimal even from an extreme altruist perspective because you will be most effective and productive when you are happy, healthy, and motivated. Consider how well many top companies like Google treat their employees.
This seems to be a common misconception about effective altruism for some people.
I once told a person about effective altruism and this person said to me:
This is a bit puzzling to me because it’s quite clear that this is not an optimal lifestyle especially for effective altruists because you want to continue giving for as long as possible. The effects on your mental health and the burnout risk is not worth the small amount of money you could save by possibly sacrificing all your future donations.
“Is it really that helpful, that western middle class should have even lower population growth, than there is now”
Like seriously. I don’t think effective altruism will do too much damage to the already abysmal fertility rate of the Western world, but it sure isn’t helping! I’m disturbed that may highly intelligent individuals have declined having children in favor of maximizing QALYs.
I do have to say, I’ve never understood the European/Western liberal (in the broad classical sense, not the “social democratic sense”, but more strongly among social democrats) impulse to devalue one’s own culture and values so very much that one would rather go extinct in the process of helping others than survive in any form.
Yes, our planet cannot currently sustain a population of 9 billion (projected population peak in 2050) living at Western standards of income/consumption. Population reduction and/or (inshallah!) space colonization are necessary for humanity to live sustainably. This does not mean that we should segregate the species by belief into “Those who believe in sustainability”, who then go extinct from non-breeding, and “Those who believe in having as many babies as possible”, who then suffer an overpopulation crisis right quick.
Sustainability yes, voluntary extinction no.
I think you are confusing correlation for causation. I don’t think the sustainability movement is largely responsible for declining birth rates, but rather that Western culture values many other things OVER child rearing, andmore advanced civilization requires delaying child birth until later. Most of the adult couples I know who are childless aren’t childless for ethical reasons, but instead for things like careers,etc. This isn’t a devaluing of culture, its the expression of it.
Hence, France managed to bring back their declining birth rates by making it easier to have kids, so the trade-off between (for instance) career/family is lessened. I’d be happy to see other first world countries address the problem in similar ways.
That’s usually my first explanation, actually. You’re probably right and I just got misdirected.
Do you expect space colonization before 2050?
Anyway, historically colonization didn’t significantly reduce homeland population size.
Extremely difficult to forecast, since we’re already in political turmoil in many parts of the world. I can’t really say what sorts of governments will be in power by 2050.
I don’t think it’s matter of politics. We don’t have the technology for space colonization, neither now nor in the foreseeable future (~100 years).
We may be able to create stable colonies off-planet, and we almost certainly will be able to in 100 years, barring total nuclear war or self-replicating paperclips eating the planet or something. What we don’t have the technology to do is to move a significant fraction of Earth’s population off-planet—that would cost in the high trillions of dollars even at cargo launch rates to LEO, and human-rated launches to any of the places we might actually want to colonize are much more expensive. Economies of scale could improve this, but not enough.
Space elevators or one of their relatives might make this more attractive in a “not burning all of Earth’s available hydrocarbons” sense, but the energy balance is still pretty daunting.
Earth-dependent outposts, e.g. an ISS on Mars, possibly yes, at great financial expenses and risk for those who would live there. Self-sustaining colonies, no.
Jayman provides a pretty interesting story for why Western liberalism might be the way it is.
http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/liberalism-hbd-population-and-solutions-for-the-future/