1 Reading Summary

On Effective Altruism

Introduction to Effective Altruism

• Defining Thinking Principles

  • Maximizing Impact

    • More is better than less

    • e.g., some charities help 100 or even 1,000 times as many people as others, when given the same amount of resources

  • Impartiality

    • Every being matters equally when it comes to their well-being

  • Continuous Truth-seeking

    • Committing to continuously reflect on finding the best way to help rather than committing to a specific cause without further reflection

  • Evidence Based

    • Quantification of impact

    • e.g., QALY i.e,. 1 year of healthy life

  • Community

    • Working together seems to be more effective than alone

  • Approach > Conclusion

    • Not united by any particular solution to the world’s problems, but by a way of thinking.

  • Research & Action

    • Research

      • Figuring out what the best ways to do good are

    • Action

      • Taking Action upon research

• Examples of EA's Actions

  • Pandemic

    • Starting a Public Discourse

    • Funding Research

    • Creation of organization e.g., 1daysooner for human vaccine trial

  • Poverty & Medical Supply

    • Donation

    • Createion of organization e.g., 'Wave' for cheaper money transfer

  • AI alignment

    • Awareness making e.g., 'Superintelligence' book

    • Creation of Research Centers & Organizations

  • Ending Factory Farming

    • Creation of Organization

      • e.g., 'Open Wing Alliance' preventing 100 million birds to be caged

      • e.g., Good Food Institute supporting Alternative Protein

  • Improving Decision-Making

    • Forecasting

      • e.g., Metaculus

    • Creation of Research center

      • e.g.,Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University

Four Ideas You Already Agree With

4 Ideas

• Helping others is good

  • vs Helping others is not good

• Impartiality is good

  • vs valuing people's well-being differently is good

• Scale is good

  • vs it doesn't matter if some people die even if it doesn't really cost us anything extra to save their lives

• Resources are limited

  • vs Resources are unlimited

Consequence of those Ideas

• Giving people equal consideration or discriminating them arbitrarily

• Helping as many people as we can or not

The world is much better. The world is awful. The world can be much better.

• There is Suffering

  • e.g., presently child death ~5.5 million per year

• It is getting better

  • e.g., in the past ~60 million per year

• It could be much better

  • e.g., presently best state ~0.5 million per year

On Scope Sensitivity

On Caring

Scope Insensitivity

Recognizing that our caring via 'feeling' does not scale with the scale of the suffering/well-being we preceive.

• Feeling-care does not inform you how important something to you is

• Feeling-care is inadequate to inform your decision-making on how to act

  • e.g,. how much resources to invest in project xyz

• Feeling-care misrepresent how much you actually care about situation xyz

• Experience it for yourself. How much do you feeling-care about saving 1 live, 10, 100, 1000, 10000.

  • Does this feeling-care scale 10x,100x,1000x,1000x?

Recommended Approach to Caring for Scope Sensitivity

• Caring via Feeling-Caring for Motivation

  • Caring motivates to help

  • Caring motivates to prefer helping more rather than less

• Caring via Mathematical-Caring for Scaling

  • Put a number on something you care about

  • Multiply it

Motivation for Caring

• Bad

  • Based on Selfishness e.g., Laziness, Social Pressure, Competitiveness, Pride

    • Imagine asking a person to donate all of their disposable money to a good cause - they would most likely decline

  • Guilt

    • Exhausting i.e,. non-sustainable

• Good

  • Based on Selflessness e.g., Compassion

    • Imagine asking a person to donate all of their disposable money to a good cause - they would agree however ask which is the best cause

  • Happiness for the opportunity to improve

Scope Insensitivity: failing to appreciate the numbers of those who need our help

Example

Persona were asked how much they were willing to pay to save the life of the following groups of birds - from drowning in oil

• Group 1: 2,000 birds

• Group 2: 20,000 birds

• Group 3: 200,000 birds

Result

• Group 1: 80USD = 4 Cents/Bird

• Group 2: 78USD = 0.4 Cents/Bird

• Group 3: 88USD = 0.04 Cents/Bird

Conclusion

Willingness to pay did not increase in proportion with the scale i.e., Scope Insensitivity

What is Scope Insensitivity?

• Inability to realize the real scope of a certain quantity

• When comparing two different quantities, we fail to notice the difference between them

• Occurs usually when quantities are large

Cause of Scope Insensitivity

• Human Species has insufficient default ability to proportionally 'imagine' big scales

  • imagine 2000 birds, now 20,000 birds, now 200,000 birds. Does the second group feel 10x bigger, the third group 100x bigger?

Problems & Solutions

• Not adjusting their evaluation of an issue in proportion to the scale of it

  • Failure to notice scope insensitivity

    • Clarity of 'Scope Insensitivity'

• Insufficient emotional response which actives motivation to care

  • Connect to the suffering of an individual victim of a large scale suffering

  • Practice Imagination

    • largest number of e.g., insects that you can & remember of big of an issue it is

• Animal Welfare

  • Impairs judgement about helping animals i.e., astronomical amount of suffering (factory farming, wild-life)

• Collapse of Compassion

  • When experiencing excessive suffering, one's habitual defense mechanism is to numb ourselves towards it

  • Cultivate Compassion & Resilience (Equanimity)

• Good-intent is insufficient

  • If the objective is to cause good, one's focus should be on the good caused > feeling good about it

  • It feels good to save 2,000 or 200,000 birds, however there is a 100 difference in lives saved. There is not a 100 difference in feeling good about it

On Scout Mindset & Thinking Clearly

Why you think you're right - even if you're wrong

Objective

• Good Judgements

• Accurate Predictions

• Good Decisions

Hindrance to Objectives

• Unconscious Motivations based on desire i.e., fear, defensiveness

  • Emotional state influences how we interpret information

    • Example of Warrior Mindset

      • Imagine a referee judging the team that you support as committing a foul

        • It is likely that one will look for reasons why the referee is wrong and not about reasons for why the referee is correct

      • Imagine a referee judging the opposing team as committing a foul

        • It is likely that one will look for reasons why the referee is correct, and not about reasons for why the referee is incorrect

    • Example of Scout Mindset

      • One has the belief that capital punishment works

        • Studies shows that it doesn't

          • 'Oh, looks like I might be wrong. This doesn't mean I am bad or stupid'

• Warrior Mindset

  • Objective: Defend, attack, defeat

  • Behaviour

    • Some information are allies i.e., to be protected

    • Some information are enemies i.e., to be defeated

    • Reflexive behaviour

    • Elevated adrenaline

  • Causes

    • based on desire i.e., fear, defensiveness

Catalyst to Objectives

• Scout Mindset

  • Objective: Understand, not defend

    • Even if unpleasant, inconvenient

    • Not to make one idea win or another lose

  • Behaviour

    • intrigued by contradictions

    • Belief that it is virtuous to test beliefs

    • Experiencing pleasure when learning new information

  • Causes

    • Emotional Safety > fear and need to defend

    • Self-worth not based on their beliefs being right or wrong

    • Perception Change

      • Benefit in learning & curiosity

Recommendation to increase good judgements

• Not

  • more logic, rhetoric, probability, economics

• Yes

  • Change the way we feel

    • Pride instead of ashamed when learning

    • Intrigued instead of defensive when learning

What cognitive biases feel like form the inside

Confirmation Bias

Selection Bias

Illusion of Transparency

Hindsight Bias

Optimism Bias