David_Gerard comments on Another Critique of Effective Altruism - Less Wrong

19 Post author: jsteinhardt 05 January 2014 09:51AM

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Comment author: David_Gerard 12 June 2014 06:11:01PM *  0 points [-]

You are ignoring that the slide being projected as she was saying it emphasises the point - it was being treated as an important point to make.

"It's out of context!" is a weaselly argument, and one that, having watched the video and read the transcript, I really just don't find credible. It's not at all at odds with the context. The context is fully available. Anna made that claim, she emphasised it as a point worth noting beforehand in the slide deck, she apparently meant it at the time. You're attempting to discredit Kruel in general by ad hominem, and doing so in a manner that is simply not robust.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 June 2014 06:48:24PM *  -2 points [-]

I see nowhere the claim that Kruel pretended to quote from that video.

That's clearly a rough estimate of the value of a positive singularity, and MIRI only studies one pathway to it. MIRI donations are not fungible with donations to a positive singularity, which needs to be true for Kruel's misquote to be even roughly equivalent to what Salamon actually said.

Even if we grant that unstated premise, there's her disclaimer that the estimate (of the value of a positive singularity) is important to be written down explicitly (Principle 1 @ 7:15) even if it is inaccurate and cannot be trusted (Principle 2 directly afterward).

Kruel has proven himself to be an unreliable narrator wherever MIRI is concerned; saying people should be extremely skeptical of his claims is not pulling an ad hominem.

Comment author: David_Gerard 13 June 2014 07:26:17AM 0 points [-]

I see nowhere the claim that Kruel pretended to quote from that video.

12:31. "You can divide it up, per half day of time, something like 800 lives. Per $100 of funding, also something like 800 lives." There's a slide up at that moment making the same claim. It wasn't a casual aside, it was a point that was part of the talk.

Kruel has proven himself to be an unreliable narrator wherever MIRI is concerned;

He wasn't in this case, and you haven't shown it in any other case. Do you have a list to hand?