Here’s my piece in Salon about updating my beliefs about basic income. The goal of the piece was to demonstrate the rationality technique of updating beliefs in the hard mode of politics. Another goal was to promote GiveDirectly, a highly effective charity, and its basic income experiment. Since it had over 1K shares in less than 24 hours and the comment section is surprisingly decent, I’m cautiously optimistic about the outcome.
Because it’s a link to a godawful clickbait piece-of-crap writing that has no relationship to LW, a sprinkling of related terms notwithstanding. Just because Gleb has an account here doesn’t mean this is a good place to post about his excursions into the slime pools of ’net pseudo-journalism.
On the contrary, being able to identify your own biases and being able to express what kind of information would change your mind is at the heart of rationality.
You’re a libertarian. We all know that. But regardless of whether you ideologically agree with the conclusions of the article or not, you should be able to give a more convincing counter-argument than ‘godawful clickbait piece-of-crap.’
I’m not talking about content at all. It seems to be that Gleb now likes the idea of basic income—and I neither have strong opinions about basic income, nor care much about what Gleb believes.
This would have been a godawful clickbait piece-of-crap even if it argued that free markets are the best thing evah.
I’m for basic income but I agree with Lumifer’s sentiment (even when I would use different words). The issue with the article isn’t the conclusions.
The fact that Gleb posted the article directly after people told him that they want him to stop taking up as much mindshare on EA affiliated venues is also problematic.
There was a lengthy and informative discussion of why many EA/LW/diaspora folks don’t like Gleb’s work on Facebook last week. I found both Owen Cotton-Barratt’s mention of the unilateralist’s curse, and Oliver Habryka’s statement that people dislike what Gleb is doing largely because of how much he’s done to associate himself with rationality and EA, to be informative and tactful.
With all due respect; I am not interested in starting another very long thread.
In regard to the curse, I would suggest that many many many people have privately consulted Gleb on his actions and told him to refrain in various face-saving ways. The number would be something that Gleb knows. This might be the most recent and most public event. But it is far from the first.
In any case; curse or no. There is significant displeasure at Gleb’s actions. He has known this in the past and I only assume continues to know this. I hope he takes this into consideration at this schelling point, and I hope that whatever happens next ends up positive for him and us, and EA and all relevant parties.
Decent article but pretty basic. Still, a glimmer of reason in the dark pit of Salon.
Didn’t know Y Combinator was doing a pilot. They don’t mention how many people will be in the pilot in the announcement, but it will be interesting to see.
One thing I never understood is why it makes sense to do cash transfers to people that are already wealthy—or even above average income. A social safety net (while admittedly more difficult to manage) consisting solely of cash income seems to makes more sense. I guess the issue is with the practical implementation details of managing the system and making sure everyone who needs to be enrolled is.
Here’s my piece in Salon about updating my beliefs about basic income. The goal of the piece was to demonstrate the rationality technique of updating beliefs in the hard mode of politics. Another goal was to promote GiveDirectly, a highly effective charity, and its basic income experiment. Since it had over 1K shares in less than 24 hours and the comment section is surprisingly decent, I’m cautiously optimistic about the outcome.
I’m curious about why this got downvoted, if anyone would like to explain.
Because it’s a link to a godawful clickbait piece-of-crap writing that has no relationship to LW, a sprinkling of related terms notwithstanding. Just because Gleb has an account here doesn’t mean this is a good place to post about his excursions into the slime pools of ’net pseudo-journalism.
On the contrary, being able to identify your own biases and being able to express what kind of information would change your mind is at the heart of rationality.
You’re a libertarian. We all know that. But regardless of whether you ideologically agree with the conclusions of the article or not, you should be able to give a more convincing counter-argument than ‘godawful clickbait piece-of-crap.’
I’m not talking about content at all. It seems to be that Gleb now likes the idea of basic income—and I neither have strong opinions about basic income, nor care much about what Gleb believes.
This would have been a godawful clickbait piece-of-crap even if it argued that free markets are the best thing evah.
Anyone can easily deny that they are biased. That takes no effort. So, again, why is it a ‘godawful clickbait piece-of-crap’?
Its funny because 90+% of articles on Salon.com are ‘godawful clickbait’ in my opinion—with this one being one of the exceptions.
And Lumifer’s dismissal of it is probably the most low-effort way of responding. Students of rationality, take note.
You sound like you’re trying to win at werewolf! Gleb at least appears honest.
The most low-effort way is to just ignore it.
“Having eyes, see ye not?” :-)
If you need explanations why this is crap, our aesthetic sensibilities are too far apart to understand each other. My condolences.
I’m for basic income but I agree with Lumifer’s sentiment (even when I would use different words). The issue with the article isn’t the conclusions. The fact that Gleb posted the article directly after people told him that they want him to stop taking up as much mindshare on EA affiliated venues is also problematic.
I think that non sequitur-ad hominem got you those downvotes.
There was a lengthy and informative discussion of why many EA/LW/diaspora folks don’t like Gleb’s work on Facebook last week. I found both Owen Cotton-Barratt’s mention of the unilateralist’s curse, and Oliver Habryka’s statement that people dislike what Gleb is doing largely because of how much he’s done to associate himself with rationality and EA, to be informative and tactful.
With all due respect; I am not interested in starting another very long thread.
In regard to the curse, I would suggest that many many many people have privately consulted Gleb on his actions and told him to refrain in various face-saving ways. The number would be something that Gleb knows. This might be the most recent and most public event. But it is far from the first.
In any case; curse or no. There is significant displeasure at Gleb’s actions. He has known this in the past and I only assume continues to know this. I hope he takes this into consideration at this schelling point, and I hope that whatever happens next ends up positive for him and us, and EA and all relevant parties.
Decent article but pretty basic. Still, a glimmer of reason in the dark pit of Salon.
Didn’t know Y Combinator was doing a pilot. They don’t mention how many people will be in the pilot in the announcement, but it will be interesting to see.
One thing I never understood is why it makes sense to do cash transfers to people that are already wealthy—or even above average income. A social safety net (while admittedly more difficult to manage) consisting solely of cash income seems to makes more sense. I guess the issue is with the practical implementation details of managing the system and making sure everyone who needs to be enrolled is.
Agreed, to me it also makes no sense to do cash transfers to people with above average income. I see basic income as mainly about a social safety net.