Good post, though I thought that it is a little too focused on money.
The problem on Less Wrong is that there exists an unidentified subgroup who believes that 1.) the best you can do is support the SIAI 2.) most people can best support the SIAI by donating money. This view might not be the general consensus here, yet the most influential people certainly believe so.
What is necessary is a paper or article sequence that outlines a decision procedure and exemplifies rational choice by dissolving the question about the best (most effective) possible action(s) one can take to benefit humanity and possible help saving the world. This hasn’t been done. Supposedly you should be able to conclude an answer here by reading the sequences. That might be the case but isn’t very effective as it is at best treated as an marginal issue. How to save the world is not an explicit conclusion of the current sequences.
So I think it’s a decidedly uncharitable framing to imply that our analysis reduces everyone’s options down to the singular option of donating. An equally valid interpretation is that everyone now has unlimited options for how to save the world. You can be a computer programmer or an online poker player or a circus performer or anything else you love doing. Then you can turn the thing you love doing the most or what you’re best at (usually the same thing) into a vehicle for saving the world.
Characterizing all the millions of different ways to earn money for saving the world as just “donating” is like characterizing all books as “just paper” or all software as “just bits”. The means of transmission (paper, bits, donating) isn’t the important part for any of these. What we care about in practice is the content of those transmission mechanisms: the functioning of the software, the content of the book, or the career / economic activity that allows you to save the world.
I know you don’t argue explicitly against this, so I apologize for laying all this out in response to your comment. I hope you don’t mind me expounding on this here to try and develop a more helpful framing.
What is necessary is a paper or article sequence that outlines a decision procedure and exemplifies rational choice by dissolving the question about the best (most effective) possible action(s) one can take to benefit humanity and possible help saving the world.
As a point of detail that isn’t the kind of question you dissolve, just one you answer! :)
Does this phrase actually add clarifying detail to your premise?
How are we unidentified? It seems to me like the majority of posters on Less Wrong who strongly advocate a view along the lines of what you’re describing post under our real names. What more could we do to identify ourselves?
This phrase explicitly accuses the people you disagree with (or pretend to disagree with?? I can never tell with you) of being sinister and shadowy. It’s probably not warranted in the case of clearly identified people who share their views openly and honestly.
Since I am not sure who, and therefore how many people here share that opinion, but know that some do, I referred to them as unidentified subgroup. That labeling was solely reflective of my current state of knowledge and not supposed to be judgemental.
I’m often using a translator which outputs many different English words for a German concept. I suppose that might be one of the reasons what I am writing sometimes appears weird or inept.
As a very unrelated side note, I usually read your username as Chinese, where “xi du” is “to smoke/take drugs” so “xi xi du” would be something like “to casually try drugs” (the verb is doubled to reduce emphasis). I have no idea if that’s how you meant it.
I came up with that nickname at the age of 16 (in the year 2000). It is supposed to be a random sequence of letters that is pronounceable in German. A search gave no results, hence I naively suspected it to be unique. Only much later I learnt that many sequences of letters humans are able to pronounce do also bear a meaning in some language. Last year I learnt that xiximeanspissin Portuguese. Some native English speakers also asked me if it is supposed to mean sexy dude. But I can assure you that I never intended my nickname to signal a sexy dude who takes a piss and casually tries drugs. I was rather annoyed that many nicknames were already taken when I tried to register with various services. I also wanted to be uniquely identifiable. It pretty much worked, as almost all of the 46.100 results of a Google search for xixidu are related to myself.
Ksicksiduh—but I prefer to go by my real name (Alexander Kruel) when it comes to vocal communication.
I’ve neverbeenChinese. It wasn’t my intention at all to sound Asiatic. I looked at an instant messenger avatar of a Rubber duck when that particular sequence occurred to me.
Thanks—I pronounce people’s names in my head when I’m reading.
“Xi” is a letter combination that shows up in English transliterations of Chinese. That, plus your saying that English isn’t your first language, was what gave me the false impression.
I’ve always pronounced your nickname in my head as if it were a Pinyin transliteration of Chinese (much like the English words “she she do”), even though I had no idea what it might mean. Making every other letter uppercase also gives the impression of Chinese (where there can be disagreement between transliterations for words made of several characters, such as “pinyin” vs “pin-yin” vs “pin yin”, to take an example from my comment), even though nobody actually transliterates Chinese quite like that.
Oh, sorry to make such a big deal out of this then. Your English is good enough that I didn’t realize you were a non-native speaker/writer. I’ll take that into account when reading your comments in the future.
How are we unidentified? It seems to me like the majority of posters on Less Wrong who strongly advocate a view along the lines of what you’re describing post under our real names. What more could we do to identify ourselves?
Now I’m feeling username envy. I’m Cameron Taylor, from Melbourne! I can’t think of a better world saving option than the one in question, even if my advocacy is of the form ‘least bad’.
(I don’t know what the ‘unidentified subgroup’ idea was supposed to be. It makes no sense.)
You’re from Melbourne?? I’m American but I’ve been traveling in Australia the past few months. I’m in Byron Bay now. Do you know Patrick Robotham? I met him when I first got back here and stopped in Melbourne. He organizes the Less Wrong Meet-up at Don Tojo in Melbourne near the University. You guys actually have a surprisingly good number of LW rationalists there. Perhaps the most anywhere outside of the California Bay Area, New York, or London.
They’re brand new. Patrick only started organizing them after meeting with me and realizing how many other LWers there were in Melbourne. I think there has only been 1 or 2 of them but there is a large critical mass of attendants from what I heard from Patrick.
The problem on Less Wrong is that there exists an unidentified subgroup who believes that 1.) the best you can do is support the SIAI 2.) most people can best support the SIAI by donating money. This view might not be the general consensus here, yet the most influential people certainly believe so.
What is necessary is a paper or article sequence that outlines a decision procedure and exemplifies rational choice by dissolving the question about the best (most effective) possible action(s) one can take to benefit humanity and possible help saving the world. This hasn’t been done. Supposedly you should be able to conclude an answer here by reading the sequences. That might be the case but isn’t very effective as it is at best treated as an marginal issue. How to save the world is not an explicit conclusion of the current sequences.
A less collapsed summary of the view you describe is:
1) Saving lives is good 2) X-risk reduction is a surprisingly high leverage way to save lives 3) Using money gives you more options for how to contribute to a cause, not less
So I think it’s a decidedly uncharitable framing to imply that our analysis reduces everyone’s options down to the singular option of donating. An equally valid interpretation is that everyone now has unlimited options for how to save the world. You can be a computer programmer or an online poker player or a circus performer or anything else you love doing. Then you can turn the thing you love doing the most or what you’re best at (usually the same thing) into a vehicle for saving the world.
Characterizing all the millions of different ways to earn money for saving the world as just “donating” is like characterizing all books as “just paper” or all software as “just bits”. The means of transmission (paper, bits, donating) isn’t the important part for any of these. What we care about in practice is the content of those transmission mechanisms: the functioning of the software, the content of the book, or the career / economic activity that allows you to save the world.
I know you don’t argue explicitly against this, so I apologize for laying all this out in response to your comment. I hope you don’t mind me expounding on this here to try and develop a more helpful framing.
As a point of detail that isn’t the kind of question you dissolve, just one you answer! :)
Does this phrase actually add clarifying detail to your premise?
How are we unidentified? It seems to me like the majority of posters on Less Wrong who strongly advocate a view along the lines of what you’re describing post under our real names. What more could we do to identify ourselves?
This phrase explicitly accuses the people you disagree with (or pretend to disagree with?? I can never tell with you) of being sinister and shadowy. It’s probably not warranted in the case of clearly identified people who share their views openly and honestly.
Since I am not sure who, and therefore how many people here share that opinion, but know that some do, I referred to them as unidentified subgroup. That labeling was solely reflective of my current state of knowledge and not supposed to be judgemental.
I’m often using a translator which outputs many different English words for a German concept. I suppose that might be one of the reasons what I am writing sometimes appears weird or inept.
As a very unrelated side note, I usually read your username as Chinese, where “xi du” is “to smoke/take drugs” so “xi xi du” would be something like “to casually try drugs” (the verb is doubled to reduce emphasis). I have no idea if that’s how you meant it.
I came up with that nickname at the age of 16 (in the year 2000). It is supposed to be a random sequence of letters that is pronounceable in German. A search gave no results, hence I naively suspected it to be unique. Only much later I learnt that many sequences of letters humans are able to pronounce do also bear a meaning in some language. Last year I learnt that xixi means piss in Portuguese. Some native English speakers also asked me if it is supposed to mean sexy dude. But I can assure you that I never intended my nickname to signal a sexy dude who takes a piss and casually tries drugs. I was rather annoyed that many nicknames were already taken when I tried to register with various services. I also wanted to be uniquely identifiable. It pretty much worked, as almost all of the 46.100 results of a Google search for xixidu are related to myself.
How do you pronounce your nickname?
I’d vaguely assumed the name was Chinese, with some presupposition that you were, too.
Ksicksiduh—but I prefer to go by my real name (Alexander Kruel) when it comes to vocal communication.
I’ve never been Chinese. It wasn’t my intention at all to sound Asiatic. I looked at an instant messenger avatar of a Rubber duck when that particular sequence occurred to me.
Thanks—I pronounce people’s names in my head when I’m reading.
“Xi” is a letter combination that shows up in English transliterations of Chinese. That, plus your saying that English isn’t your first language, was what gave me the false impression.
I’ve always pronounced your nickname in my head as if it were a Pinyin transliteration of Chinese (much like the English words “she she do”), even though I had no idea what it might mean. Making every other letter uppercase also gives the impression of Chinese (where there can be disagreement between transliterations for words made of several characters, such as “pinyin” vs “pin-yin” vs “pin yin”, to take an example from my comment), even though nobody actually transliterates Chinese quite like that.
But now I’ll do German instead.
Doubled to reduce emphasis? Now that is unintuitive!
Oh, sorry to make such a big deal out of this then. Your English is good enough that I didn’t realize you were a non-native speaker/writer. I’ll take that into account when reading your comments in the future.
Now I’m feeling username envy. I’m Cameron Taylor, from Melbourne! I can’t think of a better world saving option than the one in question, even if my advocacy is of the form ‘least bad’.
(I don’t know what the ‘unidentified subgroup’ idea was supposed to be. It makes no sense.)
Hey Cameron!
You’re from Melbourne?? I’m American but I’ve been traveling in Australia the past few months. I’m in Byron Bay now. Do you know Patrick Robotham? I met him when I first got back here and stopped in Melbourne. He organizes the Less Wrong Meet-up at Don Tojo in Melbourne near the University. You guys actually have a surprisingly good number of LW rationalists there. Perhaps the most anywhere outside of the California Bay Area, New York, or London.
I haven’t made it to one of the meet ups yet. I must at some stage. I didn’t realize they were so well attended!
They’re brand new. Patrick only started organizing them after meeting with me and realizing how many other LWers there were in Melbourne. I think there has only been 1 or 2 of them but there is a large critical mass of attendants from what I heard from Patrick.