Increments - Episodes Tagged with “Longtermism”

#46 (Bonus) - Arguing about probability (with Nick Anyos)

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 12:30:00 -0800

We make a guest appearance on Nick Anyos' podcast to talk about effective altruism, longtermism, and probability. Nick (very politely) pushes back on our anti-Bayesian credo, and we get deep into the weeds of probability and epistemology.

You can find Nick's podcast on institutional design here, and his substack here.

We discuss:

The lack of feedback loops in longtermism
Whether quantifying your beliefs is helpful
Objective versus subjective knowledge
The difference between prediction and explanation
The difference between Bayesian epistemology and Bayesian statistics
Statistical modelling and when statistics is useful

Links

Philosophy and the practice of Bayesian statistics by Andrew Gelman and Cosma Shalizi
EA forum post showing all forecasts beyond a year out are uncalibrated.
Vaclav smil quote where he predicts a pandemic by 2021:
> The following realities indicate the imminence of the risk. The typical frequency of influenza pan- demics was once every 50–60 years between 1700 and 1889 (the longest known gap was 52 years, between the pandemics of 1729–1733 and 1781–1782) and only once every 10–40 years since 1889. The recurrence interval, calculated simply as the mean time elapsed between the last six known pandemics, is about 28 years, with the extremes of 6 and 53 years. Adding the mean and the highest interval to 1968 gives a span between 1996 and 2021. We are, probabilistically speaking, very much inside a high-risk zone.
>
> - Global Catastropes and Trends, p.46
Reference for Tetlock's superforecasters failing to predict the pandemic. "On February 20th, Tetlock’s superforecasters predicted only a 3% chance that there would be 200,000+ coronavirus cases a month later (there were)."

Contact us

Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani
Check us out on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ
Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link

Errata

At the beginning of the episode Vaden says he hasn't been interviewed on another podcast before. He forgot his appearence on The Declaration Podcast in 2019, which will be appearing as a bonus episode on our feed in the coming weeks.

Sick of hearing us talk about this subject? Understandable! Send topic suggestions over to incrementspodcast@gmail.com.

Photo credit: James O’Brien for Quanta Magazine

#44 - Longtermism Revisited: What We Owe the Future

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 10:45:00 -0700

Like moths to a flame, we come back to longtermism once again. But it's not our fault. Will MacAskill published a new book, What We Owe the Future, and billions (trillions!) of lives are at stake if we don't review it. Sisyphus had his task and we have ours. We're doing it for the (great great great ... great) grandchildren.

We discuss:

Whether longtermism is actionable
Whether the book is a faithful representation of longtermism as practiced
Why humans are actually cool, despite what you might hear
Some cool ideas from the book including career advice and allowing vaccines on the free market
Ben's love of charter cities and whether he's is a totalitarian at heart
The plausability of "value lock-in"
The bizarro world of population ethics

References:
"Bait-and-switch" critique from a longtermist blogger: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9Y6Y6qoAigRC7A8eX/my-take-on-what-we-owe-the-future

Quote: "For instance, I’m worried people will feel bait-and-switched if they get into EA via WWOTF then do an 80,000 Hours call or hang out around their EA university group and realize most people think AI risk is the biggest longtermist priority, many thinking this by a large margin."

Contact us

Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani
Check us out on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ
Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link

How long is your termist? Tell us at incrementspodcast@gmail.com

#20 (HTI crossover episode) - Roundtable Longtermism Discussion

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 10:00:00 -0800

Hello and sorry for the delay! We finally got together with Fin and Luca from the excellent HearThisIdea podcast for a nice roundtable discussion on longtermism. We laughed, we cried, we tried our best to communicate across the divide.

Material referenced in the discussion:

- 80k Hours Problem Profiles
- Jon Hamm imprisons us in an Alexa
- The Case for Strong Longtermism
- A Case Against Strong Longtermism
- Nick Bostrom's seminal paper on existential risks

Quote: "[Events like Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts, World War I, World War II, epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. ] have occurred many times and our cultural attitudes towards risk have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such events are to the people immediately affected, in the big picture of things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life. (italics added)"

- Nick Bostrom's "A survey of expert opinion" (errata: Vaden incorrectly said this paper was coauthored by Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord. It's actually authored by Vincent C. Müller and Nick Bostrom - Toby Ord and Anders Sandberg are acknowledged on page 15 for having helped design the questionnaire.)

Send us a survey of expert credences over at incrementspodcast@gmail.com

Special Guests: Fin Moorhouse and Luca Righetti.

#19 - Against Longtermism FAQ

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 20:00:00 -0800

Back in the ring for round two on longtermism! We (Ben somewhat drunkenly) respond to some of the criticism of episode #17 and our two essays (Ben's, Vaden's) We touch on:

Ben's hate mail from his piece on cliodynamics
Longtermism as implying altruistic portfolio shuffling
What on earth is Bayesian epistemology
The Pasadena game
Authoritarianism and the danger of seeking perfection
Arrow's theorem
Alternative decision theories focusing on error correction
What's the probability of nuclear war before 2100?
When are models reliable
What problems to work on

You will, dear listener, be either pleased or horrified to learn that this will not be our last foray into longtermism. It's like choose your own adventure ... except we're choosing the adventure, and the adventure is longtermism. Next stop is the Hear this Idea podcast!

Send us best longterm prediction at incrementspodcast@gmail.com

#17 - Against Longtermism

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 19:00:00 -0800

Well, there's no avoiding controversy with this one. We explain, examine, and attempt to refute the shiny new moral philosophy of longtermism. Our critique focuses on The Case for Strong Longtermism by Hilary Greaves and Will MacAskill.

We say so in the episode, but it's important to emphasize that we harbour no animosity towards anyone in the effective altruism community. However, we both think that longtermism is pretty f***ing scary and do our best to communicate why.

Confused as to why there's no charming, witty, and hilarious intro? Us too. Somehow, Ben managed to corrupt his audio. Classic. Oh well, some of you tell us you dislike the intros anyway.

References

The Case for Strong Longtermism, by Greaves and MacAskill
Vaden's EA forum post on longtermism
The reddit discussion surrounding Vaden's piece
Ben's piece on longtermism (which he has hidden in the depths of Medium because he's scared of the EA forum)
Ben on Pascal's Mugging and Expected Values
Gwern and Robin Hanson making fun of Ben's piece

Yell at us on the EA forum, on Reddit, on Medium, or over email at incrementspodcast@gmail.com.