Apart from ordinary niceness, I can think of three examples of small voluntary contributions people can make to society. Each of these contributions accomplishes very little on its own but in all three cases, millions of contributors in unison can make a difference.
The first example is voting. In reality, your vote is only very slightly better than worthless. But thousands of votes together start to matter a little bit. And millions of votes in one direction can matter a lot. So even though the world will be no better or worse if you vote or if you don't vote, if everybody votes, the world will probably be better than if most people don't vote.
The second example is recycling. In reality, your recycling accomplishes almost nothing. All the waste produced by all the homes in the world put together accounts for only a tiny percentage of the world's waste. But recycling still accomplishes a tiny bit of good and if everybody recycles, that can amount to something kinda sorta substantial.
The third example is vegetarianism. Boycotting the meat industry for the rest of your lifetime can save a certain number of animal lives - and that's nice. But given the vast amount of animals still living in torture and the fact that most of your peers will continue to eat meat, you aren't really accomplishing much in the grand scheme of things. You are, however, contributing to a good cause, playing a microscopic role in some larger movement. Mainly, you are signalling your interests and values. One vegetarian alone isn't accomplishing much, but if everybody went vegetarian, that would vastly improve the state of the world.
All three of these situations require one to decide whether to play one's tiny altruistic part in a massive prisoner's dilemma or whether to say "fuck it" and worry about things they can actually control.
Are you consistent across all three? If you think going vegetarian is a waste of time, do you have the same attitude about voting and recycling? If you're adamant about the importance of voting, are you equally adamant about recycling and vegetarianism? What is the crucial difference?
I think all three of these are Good Things but I don't think too much emotion should be invested in any of them. If you forget to recycle something, too bad. If somebody you know doesn't believe in voting, who cares. If your friend refuses to give up meat, well whatever. You're playing a long term game to minimize expected suffering - it pays to be forgiving of small differences and offenses.
Wednesday, 15 January 2014
Why I Now Prioritize Animals
For a while, I thought it was kind of silly to prioritize animal suffering because I consider a single human life to be worth more than a single animal life. The thing is, though, that there are so many more animals suffering for the same reason than there are humans suffering for the same reason that it is so much easier to identify and target a root cause that we can actually do something about.
Animal suffering exists in such astronomical amounts that it is an obvious place to look for opportunities to eliminate huge amounts of suffering in a single move. Moreover, such a move could even be called realistically attainable. For the purposes of this post, I will overlook wild-animal suffering, where it is more difficult to identify what should be done.
Each year, in the US alone, the food industry kills:
~42 million cows
~120 million pigs
~300 million turkeys
~452 million hens
~6 billion fish
~7 billion chickens
Passing legislation that affects even 0.1% of these 14 billion animals would still be reaching a staggering 14 million. On such a large scale, just making their lives 10% better would yield huge rewards without putting any farmers out of business (or even preventing them from getting rich). Even playing a small role in contributing to such an event would have more moral weight than the entirety of an average person's lifetime.
One way to ignore this conclusion would be to deny that animals are capable of feeling enough pain to deserve our concern. This is scientifically and philosophically unjustifiable, however.
Imagine a factory farm with a giant counter on top of it that keeps track of the amount of suffering going on under its roof. Every time a chicken stubs its toe - tack-tack-tack-tack, 50 points to Gryffindor! - the number on the counter rises in proportion to the amount of pain. When an animal gets killed, the number on the counter goes down slightly because that animal's suffering is reduced to 0. Now, imagine substituting all the animals inside the farm for humans, who must live in the same conditions and suffer the same fates. I claim that the number on that counter remains in the same general ballpark it was in prior to the switch. Maybe it even goes down because of the power of the psychological immune system to protect humans from depression.
If this is the case, then given the sheer numbers of factory farmed animals and given what they are put through, we are dealing with roughly a Holocaust's worth of suffering per year, in the United States alone. Given that the meat industry will continue to prosper indefinitely, we can expect multiple future Holocausts worth of suffering, again without counting any farming done outside the United States. Cutting out a tiny chunk of this suffering is still massive relative to almost anything else that can be done in a human lifetime. Contributing to a new law that makes animal farming more humane or deters meat consumption would be very effective.
Animal suffering exists in such astronomical amounts that it is an obvious place to look for opportunities to eliminate huge amounts of suffering in a single move. Moreover, such a move could even be called realistically attainable. For the purposes of this post, I will overlook wild-animal suffering, where it is more difficult to identify what should be done.
Each year, in the US alone, the food industry kills:
~42 million cows
~120 million pigs
~300 million turkeys
~452 million hens
~6 billion fish
~7 billion chickens
Passing legislation that affects even 0.1% of these 14 billion animals would still be reaching a staggering 14 million. On such a large scale, just making their lives 10% better would yield huge rewards without putting any farmers out of business (or even preventing them from getting rich). Even playing a small role in contributing to such an event would have more moral weight than the entirety of an average person's lifetime.
One way to ignore this conclusion would be to deny that animals are capable of feeling enough pain to deserve our concern. This is scientifically and philosophically unjustifiable, however.
Imagine a factory farm with a giant counter on top of it that keeps track of the amount of suffering going on under its roof. Every time a chicken stubs its toe - tack-tack-tack-tack, 50 points to Gryffindor! - the number on the counter rises in proportion to the amount of pain. When an animal gets killed, the number on the counter goes down slightly because that animal's suffering is reduced to 0. Now, imagine substituting all the animals inside the farm for humans, who must live in the same conditions and suffer the same fates. I claim that the number on that counter remains in the same general ballpark it was in prior to the switch. Maybe it even goes down because of the power of the psychological immune system to protect humans from depression.
If this is the case, then given the sheer numbers of factory farmed animals and given what they are put through, we are dealing with roughly a Holocaust's worth of suffering per year, in the United States alone. Given that the meat industry will continue to prosper indefinitely, we can expect multiple future Holocausts worth of suffering, again without counting any farming done outside the United States. Cutting out a tiny chunk of this suffering is still massive relative to almost anything else that can be done in a human lifetime. Contributing to a new law that makes animal farming more humane or deters meat consumption would be very effective.
Friday, 10 January 2014
The Cool Imperative
Things don't become popular when supporting them doesn't raise anyone's status. This goes from movies, to clothing, to dietary choices, to political views. People associate themselves with things signalling an identity they're comfortable with.
If you want altruism - or whatever your best kept secret is - to become a fad, then you need it to become fashionable. You aren't going to reason someone into giving tons of their money away. You need to first make them feel as if the implications for their social status will be beneficial.
More effort should be placed on making altruism the cool thing to do, rather than merely the morally right thing to do. If it isn't attractive for self-interested reasons, then it will not become popular whether it is considered to be morally superior or not. If it is attractive for self-interested reasons, then it will become popular whether it is considered to be morally superior or not. This could even be the most important challenge facing effective altruists.
If you want altruism - or whatever your best kept secret is - to become a fad, then you need it to become fashionable. You aren't going to reason someone into giving tons of their money away. You need to first make them feel as if the implications for their social status will be beneficial.
More effort should be placed on making altruism the cool thing to do, rather than merely the morally right thing to do. If it isn't attractive for self-interested reasons, then it will not become popular whether it is considered to be morally superior or not. If it is attractive for self-interested reasons, then it will become popular whether it is considered to be morally superior or not. This could even be the most important challenge facing effective altruists.
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Torture vs Dust Specks
In a post called Torture vs Dust Specks, Eliezer Yudkowsky says the worst thing that can realistically happen during one's lifetime is ~50 years of torture and the least bad bad thing that can happen is a dust speck momentarily getting in your eye.
Assuming that both the negative utility of 50 years of torture and of getting a dust speck in one's eye are theoretically quantifiable, there must be a finite number of dust specks that equal the suffering caused by 50 years of torture. Let's say that number's 500 trillion.
Would you prefer for one person to suffer 50 years of torture or for 500 trillion + 1 people to get dust specks in their eye? (If you take issue with the numbers selected, imagine the number of people getting dust specks in their eye is a googolplex.)
I've said in Possible Positions on Insect Suffering that I think many little pains can stack up to equal singular instances of large pain. Torture seems like the only rationally justifiable choice to me.
I've thought of a way to tweak the intuition pump to serve a separate purpose. Suppose the 500 trillion + 1 people were informed of this situation and each of them selflessly agreed to accept a dust speck in the eye so that that one unfortunate person could avoid getting tortured. Would you still prefer the torture over the dust specks? In this case, I change my answer and vote for dust specks. This is because I'm a(n idealized) preference utilitarian and I want people to get what they want, even if that leads to less happiness.
For those who choose dust specks right off the bat, what if it was the other way around? What if one brave martyr volunteered to get tortured for 50 years in order to prevent 500 trillion + 1 people from getting a dust speck in their eye? Would you still prefer to have 500 trillion + 1 people get dust specks in their eye? If not, you might be a preference utilitarian.
Assuming that both the negative utility of 50 years of torture and of getting a dust speck in one's eye are theoretically quantifiable, there must be a finite number of dust specks that equal the suffering caused by 50 years of torture. Let's say that number's 500 trillion.
Would you prefer for one person to suffer 50 years of torture or for 500 trillion + 1 people to get dust specks in their eye? (If you take issue with the numbers selected, imagine the number of people getting dust specks in their eye is a googolplex.)
I've said in Possible Positions on Insect Suffering that I think many little pains can stack up to equal singular instances of large pain. Torture seems like the only rationally justifiable choice to me.
I've thought of a way to tweak the intuition pump to serve a separate purpose. Suppose the 500 trillion + 1 people were informed of this situation and each of them selflessly agreed to accept a dust speck in the eye so that that one unfortunate person could avoid getting tortured. Would you still prefer the torture over the dust specks? In this case, I change my answer and vote for dust specks. This is because I'm a(n idealized) preference utilitarian and I want people to get what they want, even if that leads to less happiness.
For those who choose dust specks right off the bat, what if it was the other way around? What if one brave martyr volunteered to get tortured for 50 years in order to prevent 500 trillion + 1 people from getting a dust speck in their eye? Would you still prefer to have 500 trillion + 1 people get dust specks in their eye? If not, you might be a preference utilitarian.
Monday, 6 January 2014
Coke vs Pepsi
When people try Coke and Pepsi without knowing which one's which, they show a widespread preference for Pepsi, which is demonstrated in their brain activity (specifically, in the ventral putamen). But if you tell people which one's which before they drink it, the majority prefers Coke. These experiment subjects did not have the same sensory experience as the others and then give a biased report of it - they actually had a different sensory experience, again demonstrated in their brain activity. This famous experiment by Read Montague shows the power of brand influence on our experiences.
Taste in music is equally subject to external pressures. When asked to download and rate unknown songs, choices are affected by social influence. When people are aware of which songs are heavily downloaded and highly regarded, they are more likely to download and then rate those songs highly.
Needless to say, moral intuitions are no more stable than these other subjective judgments.
These experiments also show the power of branding. In Change of Heart, Nick Cooney writes about realizing he had to normalize his physical appearance in order to be more socially persuasive. Whether or not people should judge you based on your appearance, people do, and altruists need to be conscious of that. Get your appearance straight and the halo effect kicks in, making your message more appealing.
Not only is physical appearance important, but so is your brand. The New Atheists are branded by many as strident, arrogant, and close-minded. Whether or not these charges are true, this image limits what they're able to accomplish. Political activists are often branded as violent, radical, overly antagonistic, needlessly belligerent, and aggressive. Far-left, drug legalization, and environmental activists are often branded as hippies, tree-huggers, slackers, etc. It's important for activists to be aware of how they're being perceived because those perceptions have everything to do with the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Taste in music is equally subject to external pressures. When asked to download and rate unknown songs, choices are affected by social influence. When people are aware of which songs are heavily downloaded and highly regarded, they are more likely to download and then rate those songs highly.
Needless to say, moral intuitions are no more stable than these other subjective judgments.
These experiments also show the power of branding. In Change of Heart, Nick Cooney writes about realizing he had to normalize his physical appearance in order to be more socially persuasive. Whether or not people should judge you based on your appearance, people do, and altruists need to be conscious of that. Get your appearance straight and the halo effect kicks in, making your message more appealing.
Not only is physical appearance important, but so is your brand. The New Atheists are branded by many as strident, arrogant, and close-minded. Whether or not these charges are true, this image limits what they're able to accomplish. Political activists are often branded as violent, radical, overly antagonistic, needlessly belligerent, and aggressive. Far-left, drug legalization, and environmental activists are often branded as hippies, tree-huggers, slackers, etc. It's important for activists to be aware of how they're being perceived because those perceptions have everything to do with the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Friday, 3 January 2014
Incentivizing Self-Skepticism On School Tests
Student answers to exam questions usually have two
possibilities: they are either right or wrong. Sometimes the question is worth
multiple points and it is possible to get “part marks” by getting some things
right and some things wrong. For the purposes of this post, I’ll ignore
situations where it is possible to get part marks. Let’s just assume questions
are the fill-in-the-blank or true-or-false type each worth 1 point.
What if school tests offered a third option?
You get 1 point for getting the answer right. You get no
points for leaving the answer blank. You lose 1 point for getting the answer
wrong.
This gives students a reason to “think before they speak” – to
distinguish between answers they’re more than 50% sure of and those that they’re
less than 50% sure of. Rather than taking a wild guess, students will learn the
skill of assessing the likelihood of their guesses being correct and holding
off if they aren’t certain enough. Each question is a reminder to think hard about whether they've really got the right answer. It's a call for self-skepticism.
I’m not sure whether this would have good consequences or
not. It could train people to be sheepish, risk-averse, and obedient. I’m also
not sure the 1-0-1 point system is optimal. Maybe it should be more like 2-0-1
so that guesses won’t be too harshly penalized. I think incorporating incorrect guesses into scoring systems could potentially have good effects on students.
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Agnotology
Agnotology is the opposite of epistemology - it is the study of ignorance. This includes both misinformation, the spread of wrong info, and disinformation, the intentional spread of wrong info. It does not cover the metaphysically unknowable realm, but rather the historical and political reasons for information being kept private, uncertain, or unknown.
Robert Proctor distinguishes between three views of ignorance:
Ignorance as native state: This is an intuitive understanding of ignorance and it is often adopted by scientists. On this view, ignorance is a hole waiting to be filled with knowledge. People originate in ignorance and replace it with knowledge as they learn.
Ignorance as lost realm: This perspective understands ignorance as occupying a space. Nobody can be knowledgeable of everything. When we learn one thing, we are giving up the opportunity to learn something else.
Ignorance as social construct: Ideas are spread throughout society by idea-communicators. These ideas can either be right or wrong and, if wrong, their communicators can either be aware or unaware of this wrongness. Ignorance is something humans construct and spread.
Some of the key examples of disinformation in recent times are: global warming denial, intelligent design, and the major tobacco companies' denial of smoking-induced health risks. The tobacco industry has been perhaps the most transparently duplicitous. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company's internal memo in 1969 was: "Doubt is our product." Proctor describes the process by which these corporations fund researchers to produce non-incriminating results so that they can (1) generate public uncertainty over the health side effects of smoking cigarettes, and (2) show their research in court to prove that they are honestly investigating the effects of their products.
Understanding the strategies used to keep people ignorant can be helpful for (1) preventing these strategies and (2) generating strategies for spreading good memes and true information.
Robert Proctor distinguishes between three views of ignorance:
Ignorance as native state: This is an intuitive understanding of ignorance and it is often adopted by scientists. On this view, ignorance is a hole waiting to be filled with knowledge. People originate in ignorance and replace it with knowledge as they learn.
Ignorance as lost realm: This perspective understands ignorance as occupying a space. Nobody can be knowledgeable of everything. When we learn one thing, we are giving up the opportunity to learn something else.
Ignorance as social construct: Ideas are spread throughout society by idea-communicators. These ideas can either be right or wrong and, if wrong, their communicators can either be aware or unaware of this wrongness. Ignorance is something humans construct and spread.
Some of the key examples of disinformation in recent times are: global warming denial, intelligent design, and the major tobacco companies' denial of smoking-induced health risks. The tobacco industry has been perhaps the most transparently duplicitous. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company's internal memo in 1969 was: "Doubt is our product." Proctor describes the process by which these corporations fund researchers to produce non-incriminating results so that they can (1) generate public uncertainty over the health side effects of smoking cigarettes, and (2) show their research in court to prove that they are honestly investigating the effects of their products.
Understanding the strategies used to keep people ignorant can be helpful for (1) preventing these strategies and (2) generating strategies for spreading good memes and true information.
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