the EAs have access to so much money that other orgs have to dance to their tune, and are discovering the professionals think the EAs are fucking nutters
the comments are darling also
So there are 2 ways to look at this.
Scenario 1: EA is like the early Christian church in Rome. It’s radically different from the existing norms but is quickly gaining adherents. Its beliefs are weird - give up riches now for great rewards later. Embrace humility and subservience, not power. Belief is decentralized, not imposed from above. As the Church grows, more and more elites join in, and it gradually takes over the existing structures.
Scenario 2: EA is a like a very rich, very eccentric person looking to donate their money but have some weird hangups.
Scenario one requires a compelling story that makes prospective converts believe and wholly commit to the cause. For the Christian church, it was the literaly promise of eternal life, once Christ returned (and he would, soon). EA has that promise too but it’s muted and it’s kinda theologically backwards to Christianity- instead of the Devil/your own sinful nature trying to stop you reaching paradise[1], you have to defeat the Devil (rampant AI) to reach it yourself.
The second scenario is the most likely, and the most likely effect is that grifters / “consultants” who are good at playing along with the weird beliefs will be able to mirror the belief system, pocket a large amount of the money on tap, and nothing much will happen.
[1] although I believe the idea of the Devil and original sin developed much later
The cosmic-level irony here is that what they need now is lobbyists, the normiest of professions, yet their epistemic narcissism will probably prevent them from having the countenance necessary to recruit them.
I promise this is my last donkeypost but I think this thread needs some donkey pictures. All pics from the Irish Donkey Sanctuary
how do we get people to take our concerns about being paperclipped by the acausalrobotgod seriously?
If people have wrong beliefs or don’t take things seriously that should be taken seriously (e.g. space property rights), just tell them. Reasonable people update on reasonable arguments.
Space property rights.
x-risk-pill
…
At least this article exposes quite well how the EA stuff about animal welfare is used as a front/greenwashing(ish) sort of thing.
things that should be taken seriously (e.g. space property rights)
I don’t know man, I think there are bigger fish to fry then who owns what in outer space
It came out today that Leopold Aschenbrenner (he of the situational awareness fund implosion fame) was also telling everyone who’d listen about how he was going to be buying up galaxies as soon as AI progress made access to them a piece of cake.
Basically outer space manifest destiny is an important part of AI2040, AI Future’s sort of summer sequel to AI2027, I’d say it appears to be well on its way to become another rationalist Weird Accepted Truth.
Yeah it is nuts, also very funny that in the book im reading which mocks the rationalists, the rationalist goal is to own Jupiter or something.
Space property rights.
dammit I’m gonna get my money back out of these SpaceX IPO shares no matter what it takes
There’s the kind of regular who’s been thinking seriously about AI safety and alignment since pre-2022, who have passing to intimate familiarity with the funding ecosystem, the Sequences, and various conferences that happen at Lighthaven. Let’s call them rationalists.
… Let’s not, because a bunch of us here fit all those descriptions, yet are clearly not “rationalists”. The way that they use that term makes it synonymous with Orthodox (“right practices/thinking”).
The way that they use that term makes it synonymous with Orthodox (“right practices/thinking”).
I mean objectivism was already taken so…
At the local AI safety co-working space
ok this is gonna be a doozy
Plenty of things professionals consider serious AI work (bias, misinformation, labor displacement, near-term harms) are donkey sanctuaries to at least some parts of the rationalist funding ecosystem, and perhaps it would be useful to make that common knowledge, but that legibility will come at the cost of resentment.
for context, “donkey farms” is shorthand for wooly-headed small-scale thinking, not Rationalist
I’m squarely in the rationalist camp, which means that when I see a problem my default response is to write a post and publish it publicly.
so how has that been working out for you so far “jenn”?
anyway my prediction is that there’s gonna be a ton of money donated to a bunch of dodgy orgs, some people will profit handsomely, and in about 4 years it will all have blown over and no-one will mention it ever again
so how has that been working out for you so far “jenn”?
OK so I was a bit unfair on OP
she’s got a weird blend of stuff on her site: https://jenn.site/ Her recollection of her closeted dad is quite moving, but there’s an awful lot of Rationalist virtue-signalling.
What about the article where she claims that based on their art, a contemporary artist “wants to fuck their dog” and the primary reason art galleries aren’t making this more clear is…because under woke you’re not allowed to sexualize disabled artists???
I am not saying it’s all bad, I’m saying there’s a tiny amount of good.
Also, from the piece
It’s very uncharacteristic for modern art museums and the commentariat to not engage with the sexual themes or undertones with works on display, they’re not exactly prudish institutions!
next para
this is literally the first art show I’ve been to in my life that was prestigious enough that there is coverage and discourse about it.
ok then
for context, “donkey farms” is shorthand for wooly-headed small-scale thinking, not Rationalist
Ah, a version of the YCombinator pejorative “lifestyle business” tailored for the nonprofit sector. How droll.
This article has an astonishing amount of almost-self-awareness, where only one vital step is missing in order to answer all their questions.
Top comment:
The responsibility probably rests on the rationalists here. People become professionals all the time (and indeed, maximizing impact often requires being a professional), but well under 1% of the population has the personality to ever become a rationalist.
Only 144,000 people will go to heaven!
I’m getting the urge to give some cash to a donkey sanctuary. Does anyone know a good one
I have now clicked around some donkey sanctuary websites and am starting to feel emotional. I am sure this is what rationalists are afraid of but God the donkeys…
Yeah, I landed on https://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/ and god it’s so much more professional and action-y compared to literally all the stuff on LW.
But maybe one day we will see a similar site for the shrimps.
the donkey people may not have picked their cause because it was the most rational, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped them from coming up with good ideas. it’s almost as if people can be more effective when they’re working for causes they’re emotionally connected to…
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What a stupid cult. Someone needs to pull the plug. The poor brainfucked computer wrecks need to go outside, and pet a donkey sometimes.
Seems like there are two types of people.
Those who enjoy holding conferences about the best way of shoveling donkey shit (plus points if they somehow are permitted to come up with global rules for handling donkey shit from the arctic to the equator and from the sea side to the mountain) and allocate funding for buying fancy AI powered shovels.
And those who shovel donkey shit.
of note is that you can without loss of generality replace “donkey sanctuary” with “dog/cat/<more popular pet> sanctuary”, but I guess donkeys are both rarer, more ridiculous, and probably more Democrat than other pets.
Replace any ‘making the world a better place now’ with ‘talking a lot about making the world a better place some time in the future with my fellow cultists in our secret cult language’. These people make me feel exactly like fork scratching on blackboard.
I’m not necessarily an animal lib person, but I think an animal rights/animal liberation/ethical vegan framework for looking after and respecting animals is probably better than an EA one. If only because they’re more experienced in creating social change. Apparently only about 1 to 3% of Americans are vegans. So they have the numbers over the EAs, and they could probably beat them in a fight too.
@maol I’ve seen it said (and now can’t find the link for reference) that whether or not the multiple on fish “utility” relative to human “utility” is small, a strict policy of fish maximalism adopted in 1900 would have produced better environmental outcomes for humanity than the course history actually did take. So, score that one for the vegans.
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