It’s highly suggestive that every single “quote” Sasha uses here to illustrate the supposed social norms of the EA/Rat community is invented. He literally could not find a single actual source to support his claims about what EA/Rats believe.
“don’t ever indulge in Epicurean style, and never, ever stop thinking about your impact on the world.”
Does GiveWell endorse that message on any public materials? Does OpenPhil? FHI? The only relevant EA writing I’m aware of (Scott Alexander, Ben Kuhn, Kelsey Piper) is about how that is specifically not the attitude they endorse.
I don’t think I agree that this is made-up though. You’re right that the quotes are things people wouldn’t say but they do imply it through social behavior.
I suppose you’re right that it’s hard to point to specific examples of this happening but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, just that it’s hard to point to examples. I personally have felt multiple instances of needing to do the exact things that Sasha writes about—talk about/justify various things I’m doing as “potentially high impact”; justify my food choices or donation choices or career choices as being self-improvement initiatives; etc.
There’s certainly been discussion of people in EA feeling a moral obligation to spend all their time and money on making a positive impact. I’ve personally felt it and know several others who have, and e.g. these [12] articles discuss it, to name just a few examples.
I have probably spent hundreds of hours reading EA material, and have literally never come across an institutional publication with a phrase of the variety:
And Sasha never claims that you would! In fact he explicitly notes that you won’t:
Generally, toxic social norms don’t develop intentionally, nobody wants them to happen, they’re not written down, and nobody enforces them explicitly.
Command-f quote marks.
It’s highly suggestive that every single “quote” Sasha uses here to illustrate the supposed social norms of the EA/Rat community is invented. He literally could not find a single actual source to support his claims about what EA/Rats believe.
Does GiveWell endorse that message on any public materials? Does OpenPhil? FHI? The only relevant EA writing I’m aware of (Scott Alexander, Ben Kuhn, Kelsey Piper) is about how that is specifically not the attitude they endorse.
Come on, this is pure caricature.
I don’t think I agree that this is made-up though. You’re right that the quotes are things people wouldn’t say but they do imply it through social behavior.
I suppose you’re right that it’s hard to point to specific examples of this happening but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, just that it’s hard to point to examples. I personally have felt multiple instances of needing to do the exact things that Sasha writes about—talk about/justify various things I’m doing as “potentially high impact”; justify my food choices or donation choices or career choices as being self-improvement initiatives; etc.
this article points at something real
The drowning child argument comes close enough to endorsing that message that Eliezer felt a need to push back on it.
There’s certainly been discussion of people in EA feeling a moral obligation to spend all their time and money on making a positive impact. I’ve personally felt it and know several others who have, and e.g. these [1 2] articles discuss it, to name just a few examples.
And Sasha never claims that you would! In fact he explicitly notes that you won’t:
Social norms and what’s publically endorsed are not the same thing. It’s still debatable whether those norms exist but this is a bad argument.