Anti-Capitalist Effective Altruism
I really appreciate Snow's article in Jacobin looking at effective altruism from a leftist perspective. As a thorough consideration that engages with the arguments it's very welcome. Where I disagree...
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Hiring Discrimination
Let's say you're trying to hire people. First someone interviews the candidates, gives them some standard tests, and puts a bunch of information on a form, then you give that form to some hiring...
View ArticleFrequent Flyer Kickbacks
A: I'm looking to place an order for my company. What's your rate? B: We charge $X. A: That's a little high; can you do better? B: What if I throw in a little something extra, just for you? A: Oh? B:...
View ArticleSRI against the Great Cannon?
One way to make things load faster is to put them closer to your users. Instead of serving everything from your main data center, you take copies of your resources and you distribute them all around...
View ArticleEvent Ownership
I've been thinking about how to handle organizing one-off events. There's a trap you can fall into when working in a collaborative way where no one feels confident enough to go ahead and commit to...
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Reminders
Reminders are awesome. They let you take something you need to do later, and put it aside until it's actually time to do something about it. Whether you're a person who never fails to do what they've...
View ArticleSingle-Level Nesting
When facebook first rolled out their feature where you could reply to comments I was disappointed. Only one level of nesting? I was used to reddit-style commenting: each comment indented under the...
View ArticleAfter the Game
What is fair to carry over between games? Can I promise to try to hose you next game if you keep frustrating my goals in this one? Can I remember that you're the kind of person who keeps their word...
View ArticlePluralism in Effective Altruism
Say you're on the edges of the effective altruism movement, and looking in you see people championing causes that make no sense, like preventing death-by-evil-robots. These causes take time and money...
View ArticleDismissing Causes
I try to be an effective altruist: I'm trying to do as much good as possible with my altruistic choices. [1] So say I'm donating to charity X that works on one cause, and you come along and point out...
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Atheism By Gender Over Time
Atheism is sometimes given as an example of an identity that has successfully increased its gender diversity. Historically more men than women have not believed in God, but over time this has become...
View ArticleWhy Global Poverty?
I gave a talk at Effective Altruism Global on why effective altruists should prioritize global poverty work. Here's a text version of that talk, following the same outline. It's probably closer to what...
View ArticleMy Country is the World
At times I've read bumper stickers and the like quoting Thomas Paine: The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. It's a good sentiment: anti-nationalistic,...
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Effectiveness: Gaussian?
Robin Hanson writes: Effective altruists often claim that big efforts to re-evaluate priorities are justified by large differences in the effectiveness of common options. Concretely, MacAskill,...
View ArticleDoNotLink: Mostly Useless
Generally when you talk about something on the internet it's polite to give people a link so they can tell what you're talking about. But what if you're talking about something you oppose? Sites do...
View ArticleMeat at EA Global
Last weekend I was at EA Global, a conference for effective altruists. The people at the conference support a mix of cause areas, but many EAs think animals matter a lot more than people typically...
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What Do You Do Where?
You can ask Android "what is this phone doing?" and it will classify your recent movements as: inVehicleThe device is in a vehicle, such as a car.onBicycleThe device is on a bicycle.onFootThe device...
View ArticleDecoupling property values and rents
By and large people want higher property values and lower rents. If you're a homeowner you want your highly leveraged investment to appreciate and don't particularly care about other people being able...
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Cosleeper
Before Lily was born I made a cosleeper: It goes on the side of the bed like a little annex, so the baby has their own place to sleep but is still easily accessible for nursing and doesn't feel...
View ArticlePro-drop English
In some languages pronouns are often optional. For example, in Spanish you might say "estoy feliz" for "I'm happy" though it literally translates to "am happy". In both Spanish and English the implied...
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