DC's Quick takes

I am a bit worried people are going to massively overcorrect on the FTX debacle in ways that don't really matter and impose needless costs in various ways. We should make sure to get a clear picture of what happened first and foremost.

"Jon Wertheim: He made a mockery of crypto in the eyes of many. He's sort of taken away the credibility of effective altruism. How do you see him?

Michael Lewis: Everything you say is just true. And it–and it's more interesting than that. Every cause he sought to serve, he damaged. Every cause he sought to fight, he helped. He was a person who set out in life to maximize the consequences of his actions-- never mind the intent. And he had exactly the opposite effects of the ones he set out to have. So it looks to me like his life is a cruel joke."

• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-michael-lewis-book-60-minutes-transcript

😢

Reminder that there is an EA Focusmate group, where you can do 50 minute coworking calls with other EAs. Also, if you're already in the group, please give any feedback on it here or via DM.

I have thought for years that targeted EA outreach to 'weirdoes' on the internet is much better than college clubs. I think it's much more likely to get aligned, interesting people. 

"X-Risk" Movement-Building Considered Probably Harmful

My instinct has generally been for a while now that it's probably really really bad for the majority of the population to be aware of the meme  of x-risk, or at least more harm than good. See climate doomerism. See (attempted) gain of function research at Wuhan. See asteroid deflection techniques that are dual-use with respect to asteroid weaponization which is orders of magnitude worse of a still far-off risk than natural asteroid impact. See gain of function research at Anthropic which, idk, maybe it's good but that's kinda concerning, as well as all the other resources provided to questionably benevolent AGI companies under the assumption it will do good. "X-risk" seems like something that will make people go crazy in ways that will cause destruction, e.g. people use the term "pivotal act" even when I'd claim it's been superceded by Critch's "pivotal process". I'm also worried about dark triad elites or bureaucrats co-opting these memes for unnecessary power and control, a take from the e/acc vein of thought that I find their most sympathetic position, because it's probably correct when you think in the limit of social memetic momentum. Sorta relatedly, I'm worried about EA becoming a collection of high modernist midwittery as it mainstreams, watered down and unable to course correct from co-options and simplifications. Please message me if you want to riff on these topics.

one part of me is under the impression that more people should commit themselves to things that probably won't work out but would pay off massively if they do. The relevant conflict here is this means losing optionality and taking yourself out of the game for other purposes. We need more wild visions of the future that may work out if e.g. AI doesn't. Playing to your outs is very related but I'm thinking more generally we do in fact need more visions based on different epistemics about how the world is going, and someone might necessarily have to adopt some kind of provisional story of the world that will probably be wrong but is requisite to model any kind of payoff their commitment may have. Real change requires real commitment. Also, most ways to help look like particular bets towards building particular infrastructural upgrades, vs starting an AGI company that Solves Everything. On the flip side, we also need people holding onto their wealth and paying attention, ready to pounce on opportunities that may arise. And maybe you really should just get as close to the dynamo of technocapital acceleration as possible.

Would you be interested in a Cause Prioritization Newsletter? What would you want to read on it?

What does it mean for a human to properly orient their lives around the Singularity, to update on upcoming accelerating technological changes?

This is a hard problem I've grappled with for years.

It's similar to another question I think about, but with regards to downsides: if you in fact knew Doom was coming, in the form of World War 3 or whatever GCR is strong enough to upset civilization, then what in fact should you do? Drastic action is required. For this, I think the solution is on the order of building an off-grid colony that can survive, assuming one can't prevent the Doom. It's still hard to act on that, though. What is it like to go against the grain in order to do that?

Would you be interested in a video coworking group for EAs? Like a dedicated place where you can go to work for 4-8 hours/day and see familiar faces (vs Focusmate which is 1 hour, one-on-one with different people). EAWork instead of WeWork.

This seems like an important consideration with regard to  the profusion of projects that people are starting in EA: https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1582476452141797378?s=20&t=pTbeJY5mXaf-54e0xxzz-A

People instinctively tend toward solutions that consist of adding something rather than subtracting something, even if the subtraction would be superior. https://psyarxiv.com/4jkvn/ - Rolf Degen

Someday, someone is going to eviscerate me on this forum, and I'm not sure how to feel about that. The prospect feels bad. I tentatively think I should just continue diving into not giving a fuck and inspire others similarly since one of my comparative advantages is that my social capital is not primarily tied in with fragile appearance-keeping for employment purposes. But it does mean I should not rely on my social capital with Ra-infested EA orgs.

I'm registering now that if you snipe me on here, I'm not gonna defensively respond. I'm not going to provide 20 citations on why I think I'm right. In fact, I'm going to double down on whatever it is I'm doing, because I anticipate in advance that the expected disvalue of discouraging myself due to really poor feedback on here is greater than the expected disvalue of unilaterally continuing something the people with Oxford PhDs think is bad.

Thoughts on liability insurance for global catastrophic risks (either voluntary or mandatory) such as for biolabs or AGI companies? Do you find this to be a high-potential line of intervention?

I am seeking funding so I can work on my collective action project over the next year without worrying about money so much. If this interests you, you can book a call with me here. If you know nothing about me, one legible accomplishment of mine is creating the EA Focusmate group, which has 395 members as of writing.

What are ways we could get rid of the FDA?

(Flippant question inspired by the FDA waiting a month to discuss approval for coronavirus vaccines, and more generally it dragging its legs during the pandemic, killing many people, in addition to its other prohibitions being net-negative for humanity. IMO.)