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A few decades ago, tech, science and liberalism were bedfellows in the Bay Area. Apple was famous for its anti-authoritarian "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott. Google proclaimed "Don't be evil".
I'm not sure quite what to make of the current trend of the dominant "technocrats", and their employees, from being liberal to supporting division within society.
But it does not seem conducive to a perpetuation of what made the Bay Area such a productive environment, from scientific, cultural and business perspectives.
Perhaps, but Apple’s corporate culture is (and has always been?) pretty command-and-control.
> A few decades ago, tech, science and liberalism were bedfellows in the Bay Area.
Digital Technology is a powerful tool to create uniformity (scale), force authority (control, predictability, sentiment shaping). Of course it can be used to fight against these, but digital tech leans very much in the direction of centralization and control if you ask me.
It's quite contrary to the present information environment.
Small startup in 1984? Apple IPOd in 1980 and had a market cap in 1984 of $1.6 billion, which is just under $5 billion in today’s dollars.
Sadly, in lieu of understanding larger societal contexts, our roles in them, and reasoning about uncertainty using grounded frameworks or rationale, most people have a tendency towards tribalism, and this is evident for proponents of both left- and right-wing ideologies. What we’re up against is already codified as the seven deadly sins, and despite the centuries of human societal and technological progress, these basic assumptions about anti-social human behavior still hold true.
The problem is when folks lock themselves into positions which they unfortunately convince themselves are beyond reproach. I like the Hegelian approach to ethics and freedom in society, but of course anyone may convince themselves that he’s speaking from their perspective, which I think is great. It shows how similar we all are.
I usually think of policies as “who gets what, who loses what”, and form my opinion around those outcomes.
I don’t consider that zero-sum, the benefits far, far outweigh the downsides to me.
These are the practical impacts of implementing a policy. I do not believe in some technocratic ideal where we can logic our way out of resource distribution causing some people to lose things.
Someone can just call you racist, misogynist, or whatever. Those labels don’t mean anything anymore because they’re used as weapons to shut down anyone who is ideologically opposed to you. Are some people racist or misogynistic, yes. But when you use these labels carelessly for anyone who says something you don’t like, you pave the way for actual racists and misogynists because they can call you unreasonable, inaccurate or unreliable.
And what is an apologist, exactly? If you’re unable to come up with a different way to look at something, that doesn’t make someone else who looks at the same thing in a different way an apologist. These are just political smears of the incurious or browbeaters.
Just because the leftists happen to align themselves with pro-social values that I prefer, like anti-racism or anti-misogyny, doesn’t mean they’re right about everything.
But that's just boring, petty bourgeois centrism.
Man this really makes me mad. Why do people love to hate on EA so much? Why is effectiveness a bad things? Is the author really advocating giving money to random charities? Or do they prefer no giving at all? Is it just that EAs make people feel guilty about their own charitable giving? Is there even a reasoned critique here, or is the author just picking up on a vibe against EA and going with it to give an air of smug knowing sophistication? A little wink and nod to the audience, who will of course have heard of EA, I mean who the hell is supposed to be reading this piece?
I stopped reading there. So frustrating.
"EA ... was originally concerned with how to get rich philanthropists to donate to the most “effective” charities but is now just as well known for its booster-doomerism about artificial general intelligence and for having had the convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried as a notorious benefactor"
I gotta say, I'm also pretty annoyed at the guilt-by-association with the SBF thing. If word got out that SBF liked puppies, would his enemies forswear dogs? It seems pretty easy to disavow fraud and even crypto in general (I'm not a fan of crypto), while simultaneously embracing taking a giving pledge, figuring out metrics by which to judge philanthropies, and focusing donations on the effective orgs (by whatever metric makes sense to you). It's like our civilization has lost the ability to hold two ideas in mind at a time, or to think beyond "bad people are bad"
People can and will continue to donate their time and money regardless of this particular movement.
Scrutiny implies scrutinizing.
It suggests careful observation. That’s not what FTA is engaged in.
But what does that have to do with EA? The EA movement is associated with tech millionaires arrogantly telling the world they are better at knowing what people need, at the same time some of these people have proven to have a dubious moral compass. So do I want these people as leaders of such a movement, absolutely not. Ultimately why do we need to tribalise the topic? You want to donate to charity in a particular way, then go ahead and encourage people to do so, that's amazing. Maybe we don't agree on the specifics but I think our opinions are actually not that far apart :)
On the merits, I think you're also wrong. Even beyond the money channeled by the movement, I think the philosophical discourse around how best to help people, what your obligations are to other people, and how to measure effectiveness has been useful and important.
It's convenient that statements like this always come out just a few sentences into a critique of EA to helpfully reveal a complete ignorance of EA.
You've evidently been exposed to a lot more contrarian handwringing about EA than to actual EA thought.
This is like someone confidently criticizing Mormons' tradition of visiting Mecca. It just makes zero sense.
On the radical statism -- I guess maybe? At least the in the US right now, we certainly don't have a government that's good at directing money to the most needy. See e.g. the while USAID fiasco. Even if we had a government willing to fund international aid, I still think there is room in the world for people donating to causes they care about. If nothing else, this is how new causes rise to prominence, to be recognized by the official channels.
Choosen by elected officials. Consistently underpaid.
As opposed to famously power-awerse and accountable middle management in corporations :)
> Why should a random government bureaucrat be trusted to make good decisions?
Think of state like a corporation in which every worker is in the board and has voting rights. Maybe then you'll get it.
What actually happens is they cut random shit, pocket the billions they save on taxes, spend a few millions here and there to feel good about themselves, and leave the chaos for someone else to sort out.
See Elon's crusade against American institutions.
Re: pseudo-alternative to proper public service -- 80,000 hours is product of the EA movement, which aims to steer people to be effective with their career. It was transformative for me at the right moment, and helped me choice between going deeper into FAANG vs devoting my career to causes that matter (though, checking the website now, almost 10 years later, I do wish they were less AI-risk focused).
Re: redistribution -- I think this is an orthogonal concern to EA, and it's unfair to expect a movement focused on altruism and philosophy to also focus on redistribution. FWIW, I am in favor of both EA and redistribution, I don't believe there's any tension between these.
I think the crux of your criticism is, "some people who are bad or whom I don't like endorse EA, or perhaps use EA to justify thair baditude". I think this is a bad argument. For every position you hold, I could find a bad person who endorses it. For instance, you seem to be in favor of redistribution. You know who else was in favor of redistribution? Stalin! And he killed millions of people. This way of thinking is good for one thing and one thing only -- shutting down thought.
Also I'm pretty sure that EA as a movement is only concerned with the former mission, and does not advocate for any of the bad policies you're worried about
GiveWell and CharityNavigator still exist. Charities like GiveDirectly still exist. But, at least where I've seen it, conversation online about these things by people who'd consider themselves part of a community has shifted.
If somebody gives to a charity rated highly on GiveWell but doesn't talk about it as EA, is that a part of the EA movement?
Genuine monarchists are pretty rare in America. Not nonexistent but.. Can these claims be substantiated or am I reading breathless hyperbole?
Rated as centrist: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/palladium-magazine-medi...
Rated as right-center: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/palladium-magazine-bias-and-c...
(No idea if either of those are credible; they're just what DDG gave me. I did skim the headlines on Palladium's website and it looks like center-right pretentious slop to me.)
That was true once. Today Yarvin is massively influential. (I'm not explaining it, just reporting it.)
I will grant that he has influence, but definitely not "massive". Maybe he has traction with tech business elite as some say, I don't have a read on the pulse of that ultra-niche demographic.
No one thinks Yarvin is popular. They think (know) he’s influential among the very specific small group that you disclaim any knowledge of.
Incidentally, I did stumble across the existence of a group of genuine monarchists in America a few years back. They're a sort of Catholic... [Association? Cult let's say] who think the French revolution is the root of all modern evil and instead all government should be subservient to the Catholic church. But their group dates back to some guy in Brazil in the 20th century. These guys are genuine though, not internet larpers or people being edgy for lulz. They're also very obscure and extremely fringe. Almost like the Catholic version of the Westboro Baptist people.
And yes, you did say they are rare. Then you said they're not influential while carving out the one major source of alleged influence.
I don't take any issue with the rarity claim, but it's at this point dangerously naive to act like Yarvin's incredibly unimpressive and juvenile ideas aren't literally shaping our daily lives as we speak.
Everybody is right-wing from that perspective. The new Intelligentsia are probably in the center.
The same people, who preached openness and democracy, now pivot overnight to nationalism and strong state fantasies when regulation or taxes appear, like for example Marc Andreessen recent disgusting ideological flip-flops.
Calling this an intelligentsia is too kind, when its more wealthy tech bros with PhDs rediscovering pre 1910s reactionary ideas and mistaking contrarianism for depth. When Peter Thiel bankrolls figures like Eric Weinstein, it is just money confusing confidence for intelligence.
The latest is [1] Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale openly calling for public hangings to show “masculine leadership”, what just proves how unserious this crowd is. They do enterprise software but want medieval justice systems. They are deeply dumb, but in a very well funded way... :-)
[1] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palantir-j...
Nationalism isn’t inherently immoral. Nationalism is the belief that people with a shared history, culture, language, or identity, ought to have political self-determination and a special loyalty to their own nation.
Where nationalism can go wrong is when it becomes exclusionary (eg defines nation as ethnic, racial, or religious), when it claims moral superiority, suppresses internal dissent, escalates into zero-sum thinking (success defined in terms of other nations losing).
Nationalism isn't necessarily incompatible with open democracies. People in a democracy can vote for nationalistic policies without there being any contradiction.
But another part of this is transhumanism, which is a weirdly popular movement in tech circles.
The core tenet is transhumanism is that humans will eventually transcend their current form and becomes who knows what exactly? Some view this as the singularity, which in part explains the AI hype.
But part of this is the latest incarnation of the prosperity gospel, an early (and now pervasive) idea that wealth is a demonstration that you are favored by God. Another version of this is the myth of meritocracy under capitalism. So if you're wealthy, it's because you're better than all "the poors", by definition.
How does this relate to transhumanism? Well, if you're better than everyone else, you think your genes should be passed on to this ultimate transhumanist future by, say, having a ton of children. Even if you're a completely absent father, it doesn't matter. You believe in the supremacy of your genetic heritage.
Another way to put all this is simply eugenics.
I don't see them clearly trying to go transhuman, I see them clearly trying to build AGI. Closer to "I have no mouth and I must scream" than any other particular dystopia IMHO.
There is a whole industry that caters to ultra wealthy and one of their core tenets is that customer is always right. This is problematic because negative feedback is an important mechanism of personal growth and self development. Thus we end up with ultra wealthy people being mostly disconnected from the society.
None of these people have any loyalty to a cause. They are all mouthpieces to Mammon.
How he rails against billionaires with a straight face is a mystery.
There is no discernible difference in behavior between the rightmost capitalist and the loudest American socialist.
Not really a mystery. He wants power. The power to assert his will on others, the power to tell others what they may and may not do.
Even ignoring the fact that owning three houses doesn't make one a billionaire (though I suppose in this market he'd have to at least be a millionaire, but it would depend on how he got the second Vermont house), I'm not sure why you would expect socialists to not welcome a class-traitor from the bourgeoisie? Famously Engels was a nobleman after all.
> Print inevitably precipitates a face-to-face community, giving it the capacity to represent and in turn catalyze real-world movements.
I've never gone to a people-who-read-$PERIODICAL party. Ever. Maybe it's common for pro-union zines that the author used to contribute to, but Popular Science, Newsweek, or the like don't have any corresponding community associated with them. There's no Architectural Digest-affiliated underground interior decorating scene.
I think the author far overestimates the importance niche zines like the one they were a part of, or Palladium for that matter, have in the national dialogue.