The downside of our brain’s neuroplasticity is that we take things for granted. As soon as the present is experienced, it becomes our one reality. Our new normal. When predicting the future, our priors are anchored in present states, at least intuitively. “How different” a hypothetical situation is from this...
Crossposted from the EA Forum Today, I became vegan. Just 24 hours ago, I couldn’t have imagined this would be the case — at least not so soon. Reading Óscar Horta’s Making A Stand For Animals[1] (MASFA, from now on) hit me like a freight train as I turned page...
The downside of our brain’s neuroplasticity is that we take things for granted. As soon as the present is experienced, it becomes our one reality. Our new normal.
When predicting the future, our priors are anchored in present states, at least intuitively. “How different” a hypothetical situation is from this frame of reference is used as a proxy for “how unlikely” it is. Yet intuitions often feed our probabilistic reasoning.
We could call this the implausibility heuristic: when we treat the perceived difference from our present world model as evidence of improbability. It’s a broader instance of the normalcy bias — our tendency to underestimate the probability and impact of disaster because we struggle to imagine... (read 1064 more words →)
Hehe yes, it's not a rational argument to use for coming to this decision. But it's separate from my argument for becoming vegan — in the end, my reason for becoming vegan is that I believe that, accounting for uncertainty over their sentience, the suffering of all non-human animals doesn't justify the small benefit we obtain from them. Using the point of view of the future is just a mental device or technique to motivate me to make the change for something I already believed was right (sort of intentional compartmentalization in Dark Arts of Rationality?).
Besides, can I know what makes you disagree with veganism as a moral stance? Is it for instance that you don't believe animals are sentient?
That's very interesting, and I think I'll lean toward this perspective too (giving more consideration to those who don't hold a view that's obvious to me). I'd say this is due to the path that's led me to veganism. I was aware of my own moral inconsistencies but also of my struggles to do anything about them, and really I won't expect everyone or most people to notice or change their own inconsistencies, because it's very hard.
However, I also expect that for some vegans it can be the opposite case and lead them to more intolerance, because in the end their view is obvious to them.
But actually yes, you've made me reconsider and I'll remove that part and leave it at "We love dogs. We eat pigs. We wear cows", cause I did want to use examples more universal among my audience than the ones I chose.
Totally, I didn't want to suggest it was everyone's point of view, more like that of those in my circle, or at least mine before not too long ago. Certainly dogs and horses are eaten in some places (horse is sometimes eaten in Spain, although much less commonly than in the past), just like bullfighting is accepted by many in Spain. My intention was to point out several inconsistent attitudes toward animals we commonly exhibit; the fact that these attitudes change so much depending on the country and culture makes them, to me, more "arbitrary" (in the sense that they depend more on particularities of the context/history than on consistent moral beliefs about the way things should be).
Crossposted from the EA Forum
Today, I became vegan.
Just 24 hours ago, I couldn’t have imagined this would be the case — at least not so soon.
Reading Óscar Horta’s Making A Stand For Animals[1] (MASFA, from now on) hit me like a freight train as I turned page after page, chapter after chapter. Now there was something I could no longer unsee — something that compelled me to act in accordance.
Internally, this feels like the first major moral decision I’ve made in my life. I had made important decisions before to align with my values. Volunteering, joining Effective Altruism, committing to upskilling in AI Safety rather than pursuing a Master’s or a conventional job, taking... (read 1827 more words →)
This resonates. I do have the tendency to read and think too much about whether this is the right thing to do (e.g., I keep following links and find an article that says "you should do this instead", then I think "hmm maybe I should", until I find the next advice that convinces me otherwise). And in the end, of course, I get much less done (and learn much less) than I would have if I had just tried something out.
Thanks for suggesting this shift in perspective towards action.
Thanks a lot for this article, Neel! As a recent Bachelor's graduate embarking on this journey into AI Safety research on my own, this is very timely, especially by sharing steps, mindsets, and resources to keep in mind.
My core question revolves around "Stage 0", even before starting to learn the basics. How much time would you recommend dedicating to exploring and deciding on a specific research agenda (like mechanistic interpretability vs others) before diving into learning the basics required for research in that sub-field?
Because my concern is that the learning paths and all that follows is very dependent on the chosen agenda, and committing to a direction inevitably involves a significant time investment. Therefore, for someone dedicating themselves full-time to AI Safety research from day 1, should this initial agenda exploration and prioritisation be in the order of hours, days, or weeks?
(Assuming a foundational understanding of the alignment problem, e.g., from the BlueDot course and other key resources.)
I partly support the spirit behind this feature, of providing more information (especially to the commenter), making the readers more engaged and involved, and expressing a reaction with more nuance than with a mere upvote/downvote. I also like that, as with karma, there are options for negative (but constructive) feedback, which I mentioned here when reviewing a different social discussions platform that had only positive reactions such as "Aha!" and "clarifying".
In another sense, I suspect (but could be wrong) that this extra information could also have the opposite effect of "anchoring" the readers of the comments and biasing them towards the reactions left by others. If they saw that a comment had... (read more)
Certainly; it wasn't my intention to make it seem like an 'either-or'. I believe there's a lot of room for imported quality teaching, and a fairly well-educated volunteer might be better at teaching than the average local teacher. I didn't find how they taught there too effective: a lot of repeating the teacher's words, no intuition built for maths or physics…I think volunteers could certainly help with that. Also by teaching the subjects they are more proficient at than the local teachers (e.g. English). I agree there is the potential to use volunteers in a variety of ways to raise the level of education, and also to try to make the changes permanent once the volunteers leave.
Strong upvote. I found that almost every sentence was extremely clear and conveyed a transparent mental image of the argument made. Many times I found myself saying to myself "YES!" or "This checks" as I read a new point.
That might involve not working on a day you’ve decided to take off even if something urgent comes up; or deciding that something is too far out of your comfort zone to try now, even if you know that pushing further would help you grow in the long term
I will add that, for many routine activities or personal dilemmas with short- and long-term intentions pulling you in opposite directions (e.g. exercising, eating a chocolate... (read more)
Thank you very much for this sequence. I knew fear was a great influence (or impediment) over my actions, but I hadn't given it such a concrete form, and especially a weapon (= excitement) to combat it, until now.
Following matto's comment, I went through the Tunning Your Cognitive Strategies exercise, spotting microthoughts and extracting the cognitive strategies and deltas between such microthoughts. When evaluating a possible action, the (emotional as much as cognitive) delta "consider action X -> tiny feeling in my chest or throat -> meh, I'm not sure about X" seemed quite recurring. Thanks to your pointers on fear and to introspecting about it, I have added "-> are you... (read more)