Another interesting case study:
Phineas Gage was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life...".
Assuming humans can't be "aligned", then it would also make sense to allocate resources in an attempt to prevent one of them from becoming much more powerful than all of the rest of us.
We (and I mostly mean the US, where I'm located) seem to design our culture and our government in an incredibly convoluted, haphazard and error-prone way. No thought is given to the long-run consequences or the stability of our political decisions.
It's interesting to me that it looks that way to you, given that the architects of the American system (James Madison, John Jay etc...) where explicitly attempting to achieve a kind of "defense in depth" (e.g. separation of powers between the branches, federalism with independent states, decentralized militia system, etc...). Perhaps they failed in their attempt, or perhaps "backup plans for backup plans" just appear convoluted and wasteful when viewed by those living inside such systems.
If "rationalist" is a taken as a success term, then why wouldn't "effective altruist" be as well? That is to say: if you aren't really being effective, then in a strong sense, you aren't really an "effective altruist". A term that doesn't presuppose you have already achieved what you are seeking would be "aspiring effective altruist", which is quite long IMO.
Did nobody make the claim that 'guy who claims he wants free speech will restrict speech instead'?
I interpreted the following as saying just that:
Free speech good but endangered by this man who wants free speech.
Would you agree with a person that told you that human testimony is not sufficient grounds for the belief in a natural event (say, that your friend was attacked by another, but there were no witnesses and it left no marks) because humans are not perfect, etc...?
If not, might that indicate the rest of your argument only holds in the case where the prior probability of miracles is extremely low (and potentially misses the crux of the disagreement between yourself and miracle-believing people)?
Every industry has downsides. Some industries have much larger downsides for some kinds of people. If you personally think the tradeoffs are such that overall you prefer to stay in finance, then by analogy perhaps others who are like you would as well.
Deontology and virtue ethical frameworks have lots of resources for explaining why one shouldn't lie, but from a purely (naively) consequentialist perspective, it would be wrong to encourage people to enter your industry despite its problems only if compared to their next best alternative it would leave them worse off overall. Does it?
This is the form I expect answers to "why do you believe x"-type questions to take. Thanks.
Note: That interfax.ru link doesn't seem to work from North American or European IP addresses, but you can view a snapshot on the Way Back Machine here.
On March 4th Putin's troops shelled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar city.
Why do you believe that?
This may be where our understandings of these ethical views diverges. I deny that virtue ethicists are typically in the position to decide on the rules (ahead of time or otherwise). If what counts as a virtue isn't strictly objective, then it is at least intersubjective, and is therefore not something that can decided on by an individual (at least relatively). It is absurd to think to yourself "maybe good knives are dull" or "maybe good people are dishonest and cowardly", and when you do think such thoughts it is more readily apparent that you are up to no good. On the other hand, the sheer number of parameters the consequentialist can play with to get their utility calculation to come to the result they are (subconsciously) seeking supplies them with an enormous amount of ammunition for rationalization.