Works In Progress is a Progress Studies magazine, I'm sure these two movements look exactly the same to everyone on the outside, but we're very invested in the differences between them.
Works In Progress is a Progress Studies magazine, I'm sure these two movements look exactly the same to everyone on the outside, but we're very invested in the differences between them.
Progress Studies is a group that wants to do something like accelerate scientific progress and economic growth.
In theory effective altruists are in theory a group that wants to figure out the most efficient ways to do good under a utilitarian framework. In practice they're a specific community that has (lightly, to a degree) settled on specific strategies for doing good. Most effective altruists are pretty concerned about the risks of technological progress, eg superintelligent AI or bioengineered pandemics. So in theory they might want to accelerate the forms of technological progress that fight those risks, but slow the forms that cause those risks.
Although both groups are socially connected (they're both Silicon Valley STEM types competing for a few channels of influence, especially telling billionaires how to spend their money), and although they share the same rationalist technocratic big-picture mindset, they're opposites insofar as PS mostly thinks about the benefits of accelerating technologies, and EA mostly thinks about the risks. This is an unfair oversimplification and both groups are much more nuanced than this, but it's good enough for a short summary.
Although both groups want to end poverty, EA mostly thinks about this in terms of "how can we help cure diseases and end world hunger", and PS mostly thinks in terms of "if we accelerate the economy fast enough, that will take care of itself".
Also both groups have some interests that the other one doesn't care about at all. For example, EA in trying to consider how to improve the world in utilitarian terms thinks a lot about animal suffering, but that's not as relevant to Progress Studies. Progress Studies cares a lot about figuring out exactly why the Industrial Revolution happened and whether we could do something similar again, and EA thinks we probably have bigger things to worry about.
Really? I guess AI risk is quite speculative but Givewell is as supported by the evidence as is just supporting economic growth. And factory farming being bad also seems very well supported by evidence. As does preventing war and pandemics.
Givewell has chosen a very narrow searchlight with which to look at the world, taken in by the idea that attributability is what matters, and the 'best' evidence consists of RCTs. This is empiricism, yes, but in the same way as - if your goal is to go up, and you see people taking an elevator and going up, but you insist on standing next to it, and moving something from the floor to a table because 'you can tell that it works' - is empiricism. Economic growth has improved all of the human experience by unimaginable extents over two to three centuries, and moved literally billions of people out of extreme poverty in just the last few decades, but givewell thinks the best investment for improving lives is distributing bed nets.
Works In Progress is a Progress Studies magazine, I'm sure these two movements look exactly the same to everyone on the outside, but we're very invested in the differences between them.
What *are* the differences? (Note: I don't know Works in Progress.)
Progress Studies is a group that wants to do something like accelerate scientific progress and economic growth.
In theory effective altruists are in theory a group that wants to figure out the most efficient ways to do good under a utilitarian framework. In practice they're a specific community that has (lightly, to a degree) settled on specific strategies for doing good. Most effective altruists are pretty concerned about the risks of technological progress, eg superintelligent AI or bioengineered pandemics. So in theory they might want to accelerate the forms of technological progress that fight those risks, but slow the forms that cause those risks.
Although both groups are socially connected (they're both Silicon Valley STEM types competing for a few channels of influence, especially telling billionaires how to spend their money), and although they share the same rationalist technocratic big-picture mindset, they're opposites insofar as PS mostly thinks about the benefits of accelerating technologies, and EA mostly thinks about the risks. This is an unfair oversimplification and both groups are much more nuanced than this, but it's good enough for a short summary.
Although both groups want to end poverty, EA mostly thinks about this in terms of "how can we help cure diseases and end world hunger", and PS mostly thinks in terms of "if we accelerate the economy fast enough, that will take care of itself".
Also both groups have some interests that the other one doesn't care about at all. For example, EA in trying to consider how to improve the world in utilitarian terms thinks a lot about animal suffering, but that's not as relevant to Progress Studies. Progress Studies cares a lot about figuring out exactly why the Industrial Revolution happened and whether we could do something similar again, and EA thinks we probably have bigger things to worry about.
TIL that IтАЩm a Progress Studies-ist.
It's far better supported by the evidence, so you're also probably more of an empiricist
Really? I guess AI risk is quite speculative but Givewell is as supported by the evidence as is just supporting economic growth. And factory farming being bad also seems very well supported by evidence. As does preventing war and pandemics.
Givewell has chosen a very narrow searchlight with which to look at the world, taken in by the idea that attributability is what matters, and the 'best' evidence consists of RCTs. This is empiricism, yes, but in the same way as - if your goal is to go up, and you see people taking an elevator and going up, but you insist on standing next to it, and moving something from the floor to a table because 'you can tell that it works' - is empiricism. Economic growth has improved all of the human experience by unimaginable extents over two to three centuries, and moved literally billions of people out of extreme poverty in just the last few decades, but givewell thinks the best investment for improving lives is distributing bed nets.
+1