Ok. Thought about this. The standard charity here seems to be the SIAI. I’m not convinced of Eliezer’s estimates for expected return for donations to SIAI (primarily because I put the probability of a Singularity in the foreseeable future to be low). Moreover, if everyone always has donations to SIAI be the result of all LW bets and contests, the level of incentive to bet will go down and so one should try to have a variety of charities that people will not mind but might not be the highest priority charity for many people here. But, I’d also like to ensure that I don’t cause negative utility to you by making you donate to an organization with which you don’t approve. So, my solution is I’m going to list four organizations and you can choose which of the four the donation goes to:
The four are the James Randi Educational Foundation, the National Center for Science Education, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, or the SENS Foundation.
And I’ll match your earlier offer as follows: If you make a post here explaining why you choose the one you did and that post gets at least three karma upvotes by 12 AM GMT on July 1st, I’ll also donate $10 to that organization. (And presumably the same rules against obvious silliness apply as before).
I choose the SENS Foundation, and have donated the $10 via Paypal. The transaction ID is #8YL863192L9547414, although I’m not sure how or whether that helps you verify payment. Maybe somebody can teach me how to provide public proof of private payment.
The SENS Foundation, as I understand it, is in the business of curing aging.
The reason why I chose the SENS Foundation is that I believe that, of the four options, it will do the most to convince people that rational thinking and empirical observation are worthwhile. This, in turn, is my best guess at what will reduce existential risk. Because I can’t know, today, with any confidence what the most important existential risks will be over the next 50 years or so, I want my donations to nudge the world closer to a state where there are enough rational empiricists to successfully address whatever turn out to be the big existential crises.
Why do I think the SENS Foundation will promote science-y views? Basically, I think the most effective technique for getting irrational people to change their worldview is to prevent them with overwhelmingly compelling evidence that the world is hugely different from the way they imagined it to be. Ideally, the evidence would be emotionally uplifting and clearly attributable to the work of scientists. A manned flight to the Moon fits that bill. So would a cure for aging.
Although spiritualists and fundamentalists of all stripes have tremendous resources in terms of stubbornness, denial, and rationalization, it is harder to rationalize away a central fact of life than it is to rationalize away a peer-reviewed study from Nature that you read an excerpt of in the USA Today. You see the moon every night; people went there. It’s hard to escape. More to the point, you don’t want to escape. It’s somehow really cool to believe that people can fly to the moon. So you maybe let go of your suspicion that the Earth is the center of the Universe and let your friend tell you about Newton and Galileo for a moment.
Same thing with aging. Your parents’ friends are right there, 80 years old and still acting like they’re 30. You can’t help but be aware of the anti-aging cure. You can’t help but be impressed, and think it’s cool. You might still believe that mortality is a good thing, or that there’s an afterlife, but you at least welcome medical science into your pantheon of interesting and legitimate things to believe in.
James Randi is a pretty bad-ass mythbuster, and I’m glad NCSE is fighting the good fight to keep “creation science” out of America’s public schools. However many people they manage to convince of the importance of critical thinking, though, I think a cure for aging will convince even more. There’s nothing quite like being WRONG about something you’ve always assumed was indisputably correct to make critical thinking look worthwhile. In this case, the bad assumption is “I will die.”
As for Alcor, it’s also a worthwhile cause, but it’s an uphill battle to convince people that freezing themselves and waiting for the future is a way to cheat death. Curing aging is more straightforward, more user-friendly, and more useful in the event of a partial success—if cryonics partially fails, you’re probably still dead, but if an anti-aging cure fails, you’re probably going to get another few decades of healthy life.
Thanks for the opportunity to choose, and to explain!
Ok. Matched donation.. Receipt ID is 4511-9941-6738-9681
Incidentally, I’m not convinced that major scientific accomplishments actually will serve to increase rationality. To examine the example you gave of the Moon landings, there is in fact a sizable fraction of the US which considers that to be a hoax. Depending on the exact question asked 5% to about 20% of the population doesn’t believe we that people have gone to the Moon in the US, and the percentage is larger for people outside the US.See this Gallup poll and this British poll showing that 25% of people in Britain doubt that we went to the moon. Unfortunately, that article just summarizes the poll and I can’t seem to find free access to the poll itself. But it also contains the noteworthy remark that “Further revelations concerning the British public’s perception of the historic event include 11 per cent who believe the Moon-landing occurred during the 1980s and 1 per cent who believe the first man on the Moon was Buzz Lightyear.” I suspect the 1 per cent can get thrown out, but the 11% looks genuine.
Americans at least cared more about rationality, critical thinking and science when it looked like they were losing the space race after Sputnik. A lot of improvements to our high school curricula occurred after that.
It isn’t obvious to me that SENS will do the best job improving rationality.
Americans at least cared more about rationality, critical thinking and science when it looked like they were losing the space race after Sputnik.
I mean, if you want, we could switch our donations to fund a program that makes sure the Russians discover a cure for aging...
Depending on the exact question asked 5% to about 20% of the population doesn’t believe we that people have gone to the Moon in the US
OK, but that’s the wrong statistic. What percent of the U.S. population insists that the Earth is flat and/or the center of the Universe? How does that compare to the percent of the U.S. population that insists that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old?
Incidentally, I’m not convinced that major scientific accomplishments actually will serve to increase rationality.
Perhaps not directly, in the sense I originally claimed. Nevertheless, major scientific accomplishments should help solve the problem of expecting short inferential distances. If you have just flown to the moon or cured aging, even people who expect short inferential distances will not assume you are crazy when you boldly assert things that don’t immediately seem intuitive. They will give you a moment to explain, which is what I really want to happen when, e.g., scientists are proposing solutions to the existential crisis du jour.
OK, but that’s the wrong statistic. What percent of the U.S. population insists that the Earth is flat and/or the center of the Universe? How does that compare to the percent of the U.S. population that insists that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old?
Well, around 40% of the US thinks the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. But you seem to have a valid point, in that the fraction of the US population which believed in geocentrism dropped drastically in the 1960s and the same for the flat earth percentage which dropped from tiny to negligible. But that seems directly connected to what was actively accomplished in the Moon landings. Young Earth Creationism by contrast was not very popular from 1900 to 1960 or so (even William Jennings Bryan was an old earth Creationist). That made a comeback in the 1960s starting when Henry Morris wrote “The Genesis Flood” in 1961, and that continued to pick up speed through the Moon landings (this incidentally undermines my earlier argument about Sputnik).
Nevertheless, major scientific accomplishments should help solve the problem of expecting short inferential distances.
Are you sure that they will be more willing to listen to long inferential distance claims? I suspect that people may be more likely to simply take something for granted and add that to their worldview. I don’t for example see the common presence of computers or other complicated technologies as substantially increasing the inferential distance people are willing to tolerate.
I mean, if you want, we could switch our donations to fund a program that makes sure the Russians discover a cure for aging...
This leads to an interesting idea: improve science and rationality in one area by helping funding science for rivals. I wonder if that would work...
Young Earth Creationism by contrast was not very popular from 1900 to 1960 or so (even William Jennings Bryan was an old earth Creationist). That made a comeback in the 1960s starting when Henry Morris wrote “The Genesis Flood” in 1961, and that continued to pick up speed through the Moon landings (this incidentally undermines my earlier argument about Sputnik).
Part of that change could perhaps be attributed to the waning effectiveness of hiding behind ‘old earth’ as a way to keep on side with ‘science’. Once the option of alliance with ‘science’ lost viability the natural approach is stake the in group identity as being opposed to any attempts whatsoever to conform historic beliefs to actual evidence. If you can’t have an image of ‘sane’ then you go for an image of ‘confident and uncompromising’ - it is usually more attractive anyway.
I mean, if you want, we could switch our donations to fund a program that makes sure the Russians discover a cure for aging...
This leads to an interesting idea: improve science and rationality in one area by helping funding science for rivals. I wonder if that would work...
I had an idea I call the “evil genius theory” that goes something like this: challenge can produce growth and strength; great challenge, on the verge of existential, can produce tremendous amounts of growth in short periods of time; therefore, fund an evil genius to do great and terrible things, and the challenge / response will better the world on net.
Young Earth Creationism by contrast was not very popular from 1900 to 1960 or so (even William Jennings Bryan was an old earth Creationist). That made a comeback in the 1960s starting when Henry Morris wrote “The Genesis Flood” in 1961, and that continued to pick up speed through the Moon landings (this incidentally undermines my earlier argument about Sputnik).
Part of that change could perhaps be attributed to the waning effectiveness of hiding behind ‘old earth’ as a way to keep on side with ‘science’. Once the option of alliance with ‘science’ lost viability the natural approach is stake the in group identity as being opposed to any attempts whatsoever to conform historic beliefs to actual evidence. If you can’t have an image of ‘sane’ then you go for an image of ‘confident and uncompromising’ - it is usually more attractive anyway.
Ok. Thought about this. The standard charity here seems to be the SIAI. I’m not convinced of Eliezer’s estimates for expected return for donations to SIAI (primarily because I put the probability of a Singularity in the foreseeable future to be low). Moreover, if everyone always has donations to SIAI be the result of all LW bets and contests, the level of incentive to bet will go down and so one should try to have a variety of charities that people will not mind but might not be the highest priority charity for many people here. But, I’d also like to ensure that I don’t cause negative utility to you by making you donate to an organization with which you don’t approve. So, my solution is I’m going to list four organizations and you can choose which of the four the donation goes to:
The four are the James Randi Educational Foundation, the National Center for Science Education, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, or the SENS Foundation.
And I’ll match your earlier offer as follows: If you make a post here explaining why you choose the one you did and that post gets at least three karma upvotes by 12 AM GMT on July 1st, I’ll also donate $10 to that organization. (And presumably the same rules against obvious silliness apply as before).
I choose the SENS Foundation, and have donated the $10 via Paypal. The transaction ID is #8YL863192L9547414, although I’m not sure how or whether that helps you verify payment. Maybe somebody can teach me how to provide public proof of private payment.
The SENS Foundation, as I understand it, is in the business of curing aging.
The reason why I chose the SENS Foundation is that I believe that, of the four options, it will do the most to convince people that rational thinking and empirical observation are worthwhile. This, in turn, is my best guess at what will reduce existential risk. Because I can’t know, today, with any confidence what the most important existential risks will be over the next 50 years or so, I want my donations to nudge the world closer to a state where there are enough rational empiricists to successfully address whatever turn out to be the big existential crises.
Why do I think the SENS Foundation will promote science-y views? Basically, I think the most effective technique for getting irrational people to change their worldview is to prevent them with overwhelmingly compelling evidence that the world is hugely different from the way they imagined it to be. Ideally, the evidence would be emotionally uplifting and clearly attributable to the work of scientists. A manned flight to the Moon fits that bill. So would a cure for aging.
Although spiritualists and fundamentalists of all stripes have tremendous resources in terms of stubbornness, denial, and rationalization, it is harder to rationalize away a central fact of life than it is to rationalize away a peer-reviewed study from Nature that you read an excerpt of in the USA Today. You see the moon every night; people went there. It’s hard to escape. More to the point, you don’t want to escape. It’s somehow really cool to believe that people can fly to the moon. So you maybe let go of your suspicion that the Earth is the center of the Universe and let your friend tell you about Newton and Galileo for a moment.
Same thing with aging. Your parents’ friends are right there, 80 years old and still acting like they’re 30. You can’t help but be aware of the anti-aging cure. You can’t help but be impressed, and think it’s cool. You might still believe that mortality is a good thing, or that there’s an afterlife, but you at least welcome medical science into your pantheon of interesting and legitimate things to believe in.
James Randi is a pretty bad-ass mythbuster, and I’m glad NCSE is fighting the good fight to keep “creation science” out of America’s public schools. However many people they manage to convince of the importance of critical thinking, though, I think a cure for aging will convince even more. There’s nothing quite like being WRONG about something you’ve always assumed was indisputably correct to make critical thinking look worthwhile. In this case, the bad assumption is “I will die.”
As for Alcor, it’s also a worthwhile cause, but it’s an uphill battle to convince people that freezing themselves and waiting for the future is a way to cheat death. Curing aging is more straightforward, more user-friendly, and more useful in the event of a partial success—if cryonics partially fails, you’re probably still dead, but if an anti-aging cure fails, you’re probably going to get another few decades of healthy life.
Thanks for the opportunity to choose, and to explain!
Ok. Matched donation.. Receipt ID is 4511-9941-6738-9681
Incidentally, I’m not convinced that major scientific accomplishments actually will serve to increase rationality. To examine the example you gave of the Moon landings, there is in fact a sizable fraction of the US which considers that to be a hoax. Depending on the exact question asked 5% to about 20% of the population doesn’t believe we that people have gone to the Moon in the US, and the percentage is larger for people outside the US.See this Gallup poll and this British poll showing that 25% of people in Britain doubt that we went to the moon. Unfortunately, that article just summarizes the poll and I can’t seem to find free access to the poll itself. But it also contains the noteworthy remark that “Further revelations concerning the British public’s perception of the historic event include 11 per cent who believe the Moon-landing occurred during the 1980s and 1 per cent who believe the first man on the Moon was Buzz Lightyear.” I suspect the 1 per cent can get thrown out, but the 11% looks genuine.
Americans at least cared more about rationality, critical thinking and science when it looked like they were losing the space race after Sputnik. A lot of improvements to our high school curricula occurred after that.
It isn’t obvious to me that SENS will do the best job improving rationality.
I mean, if you want, we could switch our donations to fund a program that makes sure the Russians discover a cure for aging...
OK, but that’s the wrong statistic. What percent of the U.S. population insists that the Earth is flat and/or the center of the Universe? How does that compare to the percent of the U.S. population that insists that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old?
Perhaps not directly, in the sense I originally claimed. Nevertheless, major scientific accomplishments should help solve the problem of expecting short inferential distances. If you have just flown to the moon or cured aging, even people who expect short inferential distances will not assume you are crazy when you boldly assert things that don’t immediately seem intuitive. They will give you a moment to explain, which is what I really want to happen when, e.g., scientists are proposing solutions to the existential crisis du jour.
Well, around 40% of the US thinks the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. But you seem to have a valid point, in that the fraction of the US population which believed in geocentrism dropped drastically in the 1960s and the same for the flat earth percentage which dropped from tiny to negligible. But that seems directly connected to what was actively accomplished in the Moon landings. Young Earth Creationism by contrast was not very popular from 1900 to 1960 or so (even William Jennings Bryan was an old earth Creationist). That made a comeback in the 1960s starting when Henry Morris wrote “The Genesis Flood” in 1961, and that continued to pick up speed through the Moon landings (this incidentally undermines my earlier argument about Sputnik).
Are you sure that they will be more willing to listen to long inferential distance claims? I suspect that people may be more likely to simply take something for granted and add that to their worldview. I don’t for example see the common presence of computers or other complicated technologies as substantially increasing the inferential distance people are willing to tolerate.
This leads to an interesting idea: improve science and rationality in one area by helping funding science for rivals. I wonder if that would work...
Part of that change could perhaps be attributed to the waning effectiveness of hiding behind ‘old earth’ as a way to keep on side with ‘science’. Once the option of alliance with ‘science’ lost viability the natural approach is stake the in group identity as being opposed to any attempts whatsoever to conform historic beliefs to actual evidence. If you can’t have an image of ‘sane’ then you go for an image of ‘confident and uncompromising’ - it is usually more attractive anyway.
I had an idea I call the “evil genius theory” that goes something like this: challenge can produce growth and strength; great challenge, on the verge of existential, can produce tremendous amounts of growth in short periods of time; therefore, fund an evil genius to do great and terrible things, and the challenge / response will better the world on net.
It feels very plausible to me.
Part of that change could perhaps be attributed to the waning effectiveness of hiding behind ‘old earth’ as a way to keep on side with ‘science’. Once the option of alliance with ‘science’ lost viability the natural approach is stake the in group identity as being opposed to any attempts whatsoever to conform historic beliefs to actual evidence. If you can’t have an image of ‘sane’ then you go for an image of ‘confident and uncompromising’ - it is usually more attractive anyway.