Meet inside The Shops at Waterloo Town Square - we will congregate in the indoor seating area next to the Your Independent Grocer with the trees sticking out in the middle of the benches (pic) at 7:00 pm for 20 minutes, and then head over to my nearby apartment's amenity room. If you've been around a few times, feel free to meet up at the front door of the apartment at 7:30 instead.

Topic

The third meetup of every month is dedicated to EA topics. This is one such meetup, and this week, we're discussing the train to crazy town. Per Cotra, the original coiner of the phrase:

Ajeya Cotra: And so when the [longtermists] takes you to a very weird unintuitive place — and, furthermore, wants you to give up all of the other goals that on other ways of thinking about the world that aren’t philosophical seem like they’re worth pursuing — [the near-termists are] just like, stop… I sometimes think of it as a train going to crazy town, and the near-termist side is like, I’m going to get off the train before we get to the point where all we’re focusing on is existential risk because of the astronomical waste argument. And then the longtermist side stays on the train, and there may be further stops.

Scott expresses a related sentiment:

When is this metaphor useful, and when is it not? And what's your own experience with this wild, wild ride?

Despite the mass of readings underneath, this meetup is intended to be more focused on attendees sharing their own epistemic journeys.

Also, as a reminder, we're discussing https://ai-2027.com/ next week. This is long and unpartitionable, so it could be a good idea to get a head start.

Readings

Only the following two entries are required:

• Uncertainty and the Crazy Train section of Effective Altruism's Implicit Epistemology (Violet Hour, 2022)
• When to get off the train to crazy town? (Marius Hobbhahn, 2021)

Supplemental A: Supplemental readings about crazy town

• The 80k Hours Interview that started it all (2021)
• Part IV of Book Review: What We Owe The Future (Scott Alexander, 2022)
  • Applied Divinity Studies' response, which somewhat sidesteps this specific issue
• Will MacAskilll on Conversations with Tyler discussing the train among other things (2022)
• Dan Kokotajlo's objections (2021)
• Jason Crawford on Crazy Town (2022)
• Ozy Brennan on not splitting weird EA from normal EA (2023), why the shrimp welfare people are invited to the conferences (2025)
• Ozy Brennan on the proposed creation of a monk class for unusually dedicated EAs (2022)
• EY on rearguard action against the truth (2008), and his coming of age more broadly (2008)

Supplemental B: Examples(?) of guys at various train stations(?)

• Tim Urban trying very hard to convince you that he's not insane for caring about AI risk (2015(!))
• Fin Morhouse on why caring about longtermist causes is quite reasonable (2021)
• Bentham's Bulldog rebutting every objection to giving to the shrimp welfare project (2024)
  • For the enlightened who have already been shrimp-pilled, here is Brian Tomasik on critters in compost bins (2019), Joe Carlsmith on killing ants (2021) and anonymous on a genus of human parasites (2023).

Discussion Questions

1. In what ways is this metaphor useful? In what ways is it not?
2. The "crazy train" metaphor suggests one or more continuous spectrums of increasingly unintuitive ethical conclusions. Where do you personally feel comfortable getting off this train, and what factors influence your decision to stop at that particular station?
3. Consider a belief or practice you currently hold that would have seemed alien or "crazy" to you several years ago. What process led you to accept it?
4. Do you have a metaphorical "next stop you are nervously peering at and considering traveling to"? What is it? What's stopping you from going?
5. Think back to your journey on this train. How satisfied are you with your pace of travel? Have you experienced moments of backtracking or regret about stops you skipped or spent too long at? What would you change about your journey if you could?
6. MacAskill on CwT: "I think of altruism like a luxury good. The more secure you are, the more you can focus on that." How has your background, education, or life experience influenced which stops on the train feel comfortable versus uncomfortable to you? Are there patterns in who tends to ride further?
7. What do you make of the claim that more experienced people tend to ride longer? Evidence for the validity of more extreme positions, or selection/spotlight effects?
8. What do you make of the claim that we haven't found crazy town yet?