Neil Sinhababu

The Cold War transnational alliances turned down the volume on nationalism. I really don’t want to go back to the World War era that preceded it.

Christian Democratic Union in Germany?

Don't look to legislative leaders for rhetoric. The best ones will forgettably mumble out accurate analyses of institutional dynamics within opposing party blocs.

To be more precise, I think we're stuck with a white nationalist + economic royalist party as long as we have plurality-wins (FPTP) and current inhabitants. Prejudice and wealth are strong, and they will have their party in a two-party system.

Whether it can resist strongmen? That could vary.

As long as the US has a plurality-wins system and its current inhabitants, a GOP is unavoidable. Changes to each of those factors are beyond Pelosi’s reach.

She’s working within the realm of near-term political possibility, as legislative leaders naturally do.

Political scientists sometimes talk about how the UK has stronger parties than the US – more able to institutionally exert centralized control. That’s what I think she means here.

This is just a matter of ambiguities in “strong”, right?

She’s using “strong” as “able to resist takeover by the wannabe strongman” and people are interpreting her as “able to fight Democrats”.

Thanks. So Pelosi is right that a Trump-resistant GOP is better, and everyone is misreading her as favoring a Trump GOP on roids.

Many such cases. Wish we had the MVP back, Jeffries is a major downgrade. Linking to the old stories of 2004-2010:
neilsinhababu.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-...

Given the end of the article, Pelosi might mean “a Republican Party strong enough to resist the return of Trump”.

Obviously if she means a Republican Party that wins, it’s no good, but a party that Trump can’t manipulate so easily might be much better.

That GDP argument is terrible, but not because it thinks long term. It's because GDP is not the constraint to worry about. If it goes way up and gets spent on death machines, better to keep it flat for a while.

The way to answer is "STFU about GDP, or I will help you vividly imagine x-risk"

It’s not quite enough to understand that it’s bad. That might not be sufficiently motivating given the many other concerns in life.

Fully grasping how much would be lost might make you dedicate your life to stopping an engineered pandemic or similar x-risk. Some EAs have done that.

So police don’t get into being Tarantino villains?

I’d say it’s utilitarian, which is how I like it.

(I’m a utilitarian philosopher, writing a book arguing that pleasure is moral value and science can show this. My PhD student did his dissertation arguing that EA’s biggest problems are its occasional divergences from utilitarianism.)

Early 20th century deworming campaigns in the American South?

The systemic stuff is great, but it depends a lot on conditions on the ground. For example, the local government might be too corrupt for good infrastructure development. Poor rural conditions can be a big obstacle.

EA found things you could roll out easily in a whole lot of poor places.

Tell me what GiveWell's mosquito net distribution – the most central EA project – has to do with race science.

There are also the animal welfare people and the x-risk reducers, but the antipoverty stuff came directly out of "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" which is what started it all.

It’s a way of agreeing!

Wherever lots of money is being donated, there are grifters and marks.

There are such people. That's more concentrated in the rationalist community, which does overlap with EA.

Overall it's a mix, like religions and many other groups based on ideas. There are Catholics of the left and the right, and EAs too. I see EA mostly as left-wing in US, but centrist for Europe.

As a philosophy professor, I try to keep the terms stuck to the theories.

I want people of all ideologies to find their way to a pro-housing agenda through “abundance”, and to GiveWell through“effective altruism.”

Musk is not an EA. He never took the donation pledge or gave any significant money to EA causes. People mistake him for an EA because he’s a Silicon Valley rich guy but it’s pure stolen valor.

Effective Breeder is more like it. Effective Killer too with the USAID cuts.

Entirely wrong. There are plenty of people donating for mosquito nets through GiveWell because they want to save lives cost-effectively, who have no interest in longtermist stuff and oppose eugenics.

I'm an EA longtermist who thinks eugenics is both wrong and pointless.

EAs donate money to help others the most cost-effectively. For example, I donate money towards mosquito nets in Africa through GiveWell because it can save a life for <$5K.

Longtermists prioritize far-future outcomes. Musk may be one but he isn't altruistic about it, so he's not an EA.

EA longtermists predicted that! My EA friends donated lots of money to Harris, because they knew AI corporations would get free rein under Trump and do terrible things.

They had some interest. I remember that some granting organizations specifically mentioned it as a possible funding area. In the end, Biden's climate change mitigation spending and the cheap Chinese solar panels swamped anything EA longtermists could do.

(Not to say non-longtermists are enemies, at worst they’re civilians)

Musk may be some kind of longtermist but it’s a selfish / dynastic longtermism. Not at all altruistic, and therefore more of an enemy than non-longtermists because he will push in the wrong way now.

Musk is not an EA. He never took the donation pledge or gave any significant money to EA causes. People mistake him for an EA because he’s a Silicon Valley rich guy but it’s pure stolen valor.

Effective Breeder is more like it. Effective Killer too with the USAID cuts.

Seems like we agree on a lot then.

The vast amount of time for our descendants to do awesome stuff in a stable high-tech future is big here. Humans don't think about large numbers like a million well, so it's hard to grasp how much fun they could have in a million years. But it's a whole lot!

The idea is that danger of everyone dying is high in the next few centuries. Maybe because of AI, but maybe bioweapons or nukes or some new awful tech.

If we can stabilize and put away the dangerous toys, it's a stable super-high-tech future. I want to set our descendants up with that.