[rcoveson]

I've read the Bible. It is mostly not about "teachings of Love and Kindness". It's mostly about faith in and obedience to God. The fundamentals of Christianity are bad. The fundamentals of EA are good.

You can't assess a philosphy by its worst adherents. However, you could attempt to quantify the net good/bad done by its adherents and make an argument about the effect the philosophy has on human personality. But then you'd be doing science and statistics in pursuit of understanding how to make humanity the best it can be, and you'd find yourself in trouble: You don't want to be associated with EA, but they keep emailing you to hear about your findings. :)

Earning to Give is to EA like Copyleft is to Free Software. It's on the more radical side of the philosphy, and it definitely leads to some internal contradictions. It is, at times, contentious within the movement. There are a lot of people who care more about harm minimization who may oppose Copyleft and Earning to Give, and there are people who are more focused on net-good-maximization who may argue in favor of both. There's no getting around those arguments because there's no getting around complexity when it comes to broad new philosophies.

[ElevenLathe]

Not to sidestep the discussion because of your metaphor, but I just don't understand it. What Free Software is there that doesn't rely on copyleft? Just public domain stuff? If so, you're talking about such a fringe part of the Free Software movement that it basically doesn't exist except by accident (when people forget to license their software) and is even more extreme than RMS, who is usually considered the absolute far "left" of Free Software as a movement. Is that really the analogy you're trying to draw with Earning to Give?

[rcoveson]

Copyleft[0] accounts for a significant but minority fraction of free software. The GPL is a Copyleft licesense, but the MIT and Apache licenses (which together might account for a majority of free software) are not. Copyleft refers to the restriction that derivative works also be subject to the same Copyleft terms; it's the "infectious" nature of the license.

Having any license requirements at all, e.g. attribution, inclusion of license alongside distributed copies, etc. does not make the license Copyleft.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

[thethirdone]

The MIT license is probably the most notable non-copyleft open source license. There is a ton of MIT licensed code out there so it is not a fringe part of Free Software.

[leereeves]

Copyleft is the requirement that derivative works carry the same license ("share-alike"). There's a lot of Free Software that doesn't have that requirement.

[ElevenLathe]

Can you name one? A sibling comment says the MIT license is one, but that requires derivative works to include the license, so it seems also to be copyleft under this definition. What is the point of releasing software with a license that says you can strip the license off of it and do whatever you want? This is effectively the same as releasing it to the public domain.

[leereeves]

The MIT license requires attribution (in the form of the copyright notice and the license file) for the MIT licensed code.

But it doesn't require that other code in the project be released under the MIT license (or even released at all), which is what copyleft would do.

It's pretty close to releasing it to the public domain, and the point of that is that it's actually really hard to release something to the public domain worldwide. Just saying something like "I release this code to the public domain" doesn't have the same effect in every country.

[ElevenLathe]

Interesting, I've never encountered this extremely narrow definition of copyleft. Thanks for explaining.

[ben_w]

MIT isn’t copyleft.

If you want to include an MIT licensed work in your project, your obligation is to say “I am using $foo, here is a copy of the MIT licence: $text”, and that’s it.

If you want to include a GPL licensed work in your project, your project is now also GPL licensed, and you are obliged to make the source available.

(I’m not a lawyer etc.)

[constantcrying]

>But then you'd be doing science and statistics in pursuit of understanding how to make humanity the best it can be

I can not possibly imagine an idea which has done more harm to humanity than that one.

[ben_w]

That’s a failure of imagination.

Three of the most iconically evil world leaders of the previous century tried (if I’m feeling generous) to make humanity better by their own definition, but without allowing the science and the statistics tell them they were wrong about the basics.

[constantcrying]

"This time we learned from the mistakes of the past."

"... the boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide, drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted: he flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride the air. Even as his mouth was crying his father’s name, it vanished into the dark blue sea ..." - Ovid

[gnramires]

I understand the worry, but what's the alternative? Doing nothing? Every day, we are confronted with the facts, and we have to make a decision. Doing nothing could be one of them. I am highly convinced doing something is better than nothing, and the somethings I've found (not all the things, but some things) are Effective altruism.

If you have better proposals, name them, let us discuss and maybe we can do even better!

(the movement is really open about this -- which is one of the reasons some people have seemingly weird beliefs -- simply because some people said 'You should be instead doing X!!', where X was saving humanity from existential risks; maybe you should be shouting at us 'You should be instead doing Y!!', where Y is your idea, and if you're right we sincerely, truly hope you can change our minds)

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/

[constantcrying]

>Doing nothing?

Doing nothing would have been better than doing scientific socialism.

>I understand the worry, but what's the alternative?

Obviously the hardest question. The first and most important issue is the truth. The second most important issue is what are the limits of truth. For me the idea of utilitarianism (and all variations on the idea of a purely rational/mathematical based morality) is an "anti truth", it isn't just false, it false and makes confident truth claims about the unknowable. Of course this an entirely negative claim, but there is one korrolary: People can be fulfilled without me understanding why and completely in despair with me not having any idea how to fix this.

I think nobody should be asking "how can I fix the world" before they have asked themselves if they are the person they think they should be. And whether there is someone there right now close to them, who could maybe really need some help. Of course the world isn't saved by that, but is there any hope if we ignore the people closest to us in favor of vain dreams?

[ben_w]

I have no idea what rhetorical point you’re trying to make with a reference to… Icarus? Especially as small-r rationality (i.e. science and statistics) is how we went from manned flight being only a myth, to walking on the moon.

[matthewdgreen]

I was just skimming the thread and I understood the point. A little heavyhanded maybe, but not hard to parse.

[constantcrying]

>I have no idea what rhetorical point you’re trying to make with a reference to… Icarus?

Deadalus was a great inventor and scientist. When imprisoned he devises a means for him and his son to escape, in fact he realizes one of mans greatest achievements, flight. While he is able to control his invention and makes good use out of it (making sure to avoid both extremes), his son can neither control himself nor the technology given to him. In the desire to reach ever greater heights he is ultimately destroyed.

The point is (or at least the one which is so easily read into the story) that all technology is dangerous and that great care needs to be put into how we make use of it.

The idea of using statistics and quantitative methods of the social sciences to devise the best way for humans to live is Icarus grasping at the sun. Very smart people have found new ideas, novel methods and all the mathematics to answer one of mankinds greatest question, if we let them use it a great future awaits. This already was the folly of "scientific socialism", and your new attempt at it will land you in the Icarian see, just like last time.

[ben_w]

> scientific socialism

But it’s also how capitalist governments work. And businesses. And every scientific advancement, including how we decided which of the covid vaccines to give the OK to and which ones to reject. It’s also how the chemistry of the synthetic fibres in your clothes and the plastic in your computer were learned, how the machines which made each component of the latter and assembled them into the finished products became reliable enough. It’s how we even know there’s a rise in obesity levels, how we learned which things are good SSRIs and which have unfortunate side effects, how we learned not to let everyone have as much alcohol as they (or their bartender) felt like, and why various countries allow tobacco to be sold but only with graphic depictions of the consequences (consequences which we only know because of statistics and science). Online advertising is nothing but statistical aggregations; algorithmic timelines and personalised search results and recommend products/content are basically the exact same statistics but used to sell the recommender itself rather than a 3rd party. The politicians in a democracy also do statistics to figure out how well they’re selling their ideas and if they need to change tactics or entirely switch their message (or even messenger).

And, as I said, literal flight, that’s also science and statistics.

[rcoveson]

Take a step back even further and it becomes "thinking really hard about how to make humanity the best it can be". Another step back and it's just "thinking really hard". Which, admittedly, has caused a lot of harm!

So is the solution to stop thinking? Or just to stop quantifying and analyzing? Or maybe it's the motivation, humanism, that's at fault, and we should all just worry about ourselves?

[constantcrying]

Mathematics is a far more cruel tool than any other means of thought.

When I was in 10th grade I was a utilitarian, in the philosophy class I assigned numerical values to suffering/happiness and calculated averages to solve moral dilemmas.

I have been wrong about a lot of things in my life, but that idea I certainly was the wrongest about.

Statistics knows absolutely nothing of kindness and hapiness can not be assigned a numerical value. Which didn't stop people from trying and creating unimaginable suffering.

[rcoveson]

Assuming you have even semi-common answers to questions like "what is an example of a great government", "what is an example of a great charity", or "what is an example of a great organization", you'll find it's an entity that makes extensive use of quantification and statistical analysis. Yes, they're as "unkind" as a sword, hammer, or pen. Yes, they have been used for evil. And sure, you can get by without them when you're making family-scale/tribal-scale moral decisions. But when you're chosing who to vote for (at, say, the federal level), or who to donate to (among worldwide charities), you're going to get better results if you quantify, or follow people who you trust to quantify.

[gnramires]

I think I understand you -- just a single number can never capture the richness and complexity of a life. But it's not about just using numbers, it's about doing all the useful stuff, including putting numbers (which is indeed often very important). We can't feel the pain of a billion people -- we can only look at statistics in disbelief that so many beings are suffering so much, and try to make their lives better if we can (and indeed we can :) ).

> Which didn't stop people from trying and creating unimaginable suffering.

Aren't we already creating immense amounts of suffering by the conditions of animals (which often have terrible living conditions), preventable diseases and poverty? Why putting a number on it is more evil than doing nothing?

[constantcrying]

The problem arises if the number does not actually represent the suffering (which it will not). In the end your policy will be about manipulating the system which outputs the number.

The incentives will not be to reduce any actual suffering or solve any real problems, since those might only be loosely correlated with the number. It is extremely easy to reduce the number of crimes, or the amount of people needing psychiatric care. It is extremely hard to increase safety and social cohesion or the mental wellbeing of the population.

[gnramires]

You don't understand one thing: we actually care. Like, we really, really care :) (at least that's my perception of many fellow EAs)

People behind those charities have diverse backgrounds in social sciences, philosophy, economics, and welcome better ways to do more good, better.

If we are not reducing suffering, we will investigate, and try to do better. If we're only decreasing malaria death statistics and increasing death by other means, if we're not effective, we really want to know. Some very skilled social scientists are working on this problem -- many in the field, talking to people, going to poor places where things like tropical diseases happen.

I think giving more weight to the psychological and broader human side is a fundamentally important point as well (which I agree with and have voiced opinions about), but we also have to remember the basic realities of the diseases (like malaria or diseases that cause lifelong blindness!), and the reality of living in extreme poverty. In the end I recommend that you see documentaries about people living in poverty, visit them if you can, to solidify your decision (and tell it to others -- communication is real and important!)

I have just heard of the Happy Lives Institute which seems to be looking at the global mental wellbeing perspective (note: I have done 0 research on them, but the idea seems good!), and I admire Scott Suskind's free website that gives evidence-based treatment guides for mental health issues[1]. Maybe share this perspective on EA forums?

If there was something truly absurd about what I am doing, really sincere criticism, I think I would have heard it more by now, but I welcome further examination of GiveWell charities (I personally really like GiveDirectly as well).

I also believe the point about giving locally.

The power of simply caring, being humane, is really important, and very central to EA. This is different from many other organizations where you're just optimizing a number, where you're guided by ego, by power, or just blindly maximizing something. By fundamentally caring about the result, which is the idea behind effectiveness, we can go much further and be much more robust to our own failures.

[1] https://lorienpsych.com/2021/06/05/depression/

I recommend this source to anyone, Scott Suskind is a professional psychiatrist