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Lumifer comments on Effective altruism and political power - Less Wrong Discussion
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No.
The impact of what? The whole of the US policy? That's an unrealistic goal. Besides, I don't know if any of them is particularly altruistic. They have lots of money which means that giving away large (in absolute terms) chunks of it leads to zero marginal impact on their life, but that's a different thing.
I also find it... ironic that Bill Gates is missing from your list.
You're thinking technocracy and that's not necessarily a good idea. What you want above all in a political leader is that his value system be aligned to yours. If it is not, the fact that he is effective at reaching his goals becomes a threat, not a benefit.
It is also the case that the US political process is set up to filter away the sane people. Would anyone sane really want a team of competent and malicious lawyers and investigators to go through his entire life with a fine-toothed comb looking for any dirt (or for what can be made to look like it)?
P.S. You should distinguish between actually running for Presidency and "let's pretend I'm running for President because it will be fun and I'm an attention whore, anyway".
Gates is the most credible "high tech" presidential candidate I can think of.
How do the EA folks rate his charitable efforts?
Only if the goals are actually opposed to yours.
Anyway, I think most politicians goals are vaguely similar in certain respects - almost all think that economic growth is good, for instance.
Nope, because for many resources the game is zero-sum.
So, taking a look at the XX century, for example, do you think that the value systems of politicians (or, by extension, political elites) can be safely ignored? 8-0
No, I don't think that the value systems can be ignored, I'm saying that ability to implement might be more important.
For instance, suppose you highly value environmentalism, but the party which puts environmentalism as their #1 option wants to stop nuclear power (as is typical of environmentalists). If you believe that nuclear power is the best clean, reliable option we have the technology for now, then you might vote for a party which has environmentalism lower down the list of priorities (and no-one wants the environment to be polluted) but has greater expertise.
Depends on the degree of mismatch we are talking about, but generally speaking, no, I still think that similar values are MUCH more important than the capability to execute.
Your example, by the way, is not about expertise, it's about the value mismatch (you highly value nuclear power and the Green party highly disvalues it).
I recommend these posts:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/l4/terminal_values_and_instrumental_values/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/le/lost_purposes/
I am aware of these posts. Can you be more direct?
I expect there are particular factual statements that pro-nuclear environmentalists and anti-nuclear environmentalists would disagree with about the world. (E.g. "When all things are said and done, the expected effect of more nuclear power on the environment is (positive|negative).") If this is true, it seems to me that being pro/anti nuclear is probably an instrumental goal not a terminal one.
Could be or could be not -- the original example is quite barebones and we can read different interpretations into it. But in any case that seems irrelevant: we are not talking about the difference between instrumental and terminal goals, we are talking about the choice between two agents/proxies one of which has a closer value system and the other is more effective at achieving his goals.
If the two environmentalists had a debate about this subject, each could start the debate by saying they want to do whatever is best for the environment. And then each could present a series of facts suggesting that nuclear power either is or is not good for the environment--a factual disagreement about what the right instrumental goal is for achieving the terminal goal of helping the environment.
If you think anti-nuclear environmentalists possess lack of nuclear plants as a terminal value, imagine what would happen if one was convinced of the factual belief that nuclear power is actually good for the environment. If your model is correct, we can imagine that they would continue to be anti-nuclear environmentalists because that's their terminal goal (while acknowledging that nuclear power is actually the best option for the environment). But we have counterexamples like Stewart Brand who switched from anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear after doing research & having their beliefs change.
I agree with hg00 - I meant that environmentalism is a goal and nuclear power is a means to an end, not a value in itself.
I thought about him, but it seems "too obvious"(?). Like I'd think that it's sort of clear that he has a solid chance at running and winning if he wanted to. But he doesn't, so I take that as evidence that he doesn't want to. Although I didn't think much about it, and it very well may be bad reasoning.
Really? Have you asked any "regular" people -- cashiers in a Walmart, car mechanics, secretaries -- whether they think Bill "Why isn't my computer doing what I want?" Gates would make a good POTUS..?
But the ironic part actually has to do with Gates demonstrating much more altruism than other names on your list.
I think you're right. My previous comment was just what my original thought process was, but now I think you're right.