Podcast appearances and mentions of stefan schubert

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Best podcasts about stefan schubert

Latest podcast episodes about stefan schubert

The Human Podcast
The Effective Altruist | 10 QUESTIONS 10 MINUTES (Ep. 4)

The Human Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 24, 2025 9:45


WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/dhww--wcPnkWelcome to the new quickfire series where I'm asking a wide range of people, from different careers, 10 Questions in 10 Minutes!Ep .4 is with an 'effective altruist' - Stefan Schubert. 'Effective altruists' aim to find the best ways to help others and put this into practice. Stefan is a researcher in philosophy and psychology at Effective Altruism Sweden. Subscribe for new episodes every week! Full series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdXqMrbQhkyuTGEVeaxGtPXUe_Vcpn_6l

Gold & Silber | Podcast für Investoren, Krisenvorsorger und Sammler | Kettner-Edelmetalle
#394 "Wir müssen jetzt den Notstand ausrufen!" (Ex-Polizist spricht Klartext)

Gold & Silber | Podcast für Investoren, Krisenvorsorger und Sammler | Kettner-Edelmetalle

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2025 23:18


Stefan Schubert zeigt auf, wie Polizisten gezielt daran gehindert werden, gegen bestimmte Tätergruppen vorzugehen und wie eine "Asylindustrie" von der aktuellen Situation profitiert. Er warnt eindringlich vor "schwedischen Verhältnissen" und fordert sofortige Maßnahmen zur Grenzsicherung.

London Futurists
From ineffective altruism to effective altruism? with Stefan Schubert

London Futurists

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2024 34:12


Our subject in this episode is altruism – our human desire and instinct to assist each other, making some personal sacrifices along the way. More precisely, our subject is the possible future of altruism – a future in which our philanthropic activities – our charitable donations, and how we spend our discretionary time – could have a considerably greater impact than at present. The issue is that many of our present activities, which are intended to help others, aren't particularly effective.That's the judgement reached by our guest today, Stefan Schubert. Stefan is a researcher in philosophy and psychology, currently based in Stockholm, Sweden, and has previously held roles at the LSE and the University of Oxford. Stefan is the co-author of the recently published book “Effective Altruism and the Human Mind”.Selected follow-ups:Stefan Schubert - Effective AltruismEffective Altruism and the Human Mind: The Clash Between Impact and Intuition - Oxford University Press (open access)Centre for Effective AltruismProfessor Nadira Faber - Uehiro Institute, OxfordWhat are the best charities to support in 2024? - Giving What We CanEffective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed - TimeVirtues for Real-World Utilitarians - by Stefan Schubert & Lucius Caviola, UtilitarianismDeworming - Effective Altruism ForumWhat we know about Musk's cost-cutting mission - BBC article about DOGEWhat is your p(doom)? with Darren McKeeLongtermism - WikipediaMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

The Human Podcast
The Psychology of 'Effective Altruism': How To Do Good

The Human Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2024 48:03


WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/My9X_r4nhGsIn this episode, I speak to Stefan Schubert, a researcher in philosophy and psychology at Effective Altruism Sweden. Together with Lucius Caviola, Stefan recently published a book on the psychology of effective altruism: Effective Altruism and the Human Mind: The Clash Between Impact and Intuition.The Human Podcast explores the lives and ideas of inspiring individuals. Subscribe for new interviews every week.

Wie ist die Lage?
Heute mit Stefan Schubert

Wie ist die Lage?

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2024 15:51


Der Filmproduzent und frühere Geschäftsführer von Wüste Film Stefan Schubert über seinen Ausstieg aus der Geschäftsführung von Wüste Film, seine spannendsten Produktionen und die Filmstadt Hamburg. Unser Partner in dieser Woche ist der Podcast „Campus Legenden“. Foto: privat

The Nonlinear Library
LW - Monthly Roundup #22: September 2024 by Zvi

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2024 68:02


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Monthly Roundup #22: September 2024, published by Zvi on September 18, 2024 on LessWrong. It's that time again for all the sufficiently interesting news that isn't otherwise fit to print, also known as the Monthly Roundup. Bad News Beware the failure mode in strategy and decisions that implicitly assumes competence, or wishes away difficulties, and remember to reverse all advice you hear. Stefan Schubert (quoting Tyler Cowen on raising people's ambitions often being very high value): I think lowering others' aspirations can also be high-return. I know of people who would have had a better life by now if someone could have persuaded them to pursue more realistic plans. Rob Miles: There's a specific failure mode which I don't have a name for, which is similar to "be too ambitious" but is closer to "have an unrealistic plan". The illustrative example I use is: Suppose by some strange circumstance you have to represent your country at olympic gymnastics next week. One approach is to look at last year's gold, and try to do that routine. This will fail. You'll do better by finding one or two things you can actually do, and doing them well There's a common failure of rationality which looks like "Figure out what strategy an ideal reasoner would use, then employ that strategy". It's often valuable to think about the optimal policy, but you must understand the difference between knowing the path, and walking the path I do think that more often 'raise people's ambitions' is the right move, but you need to carry both cards around with you for different people in different situations. Theory that Starlink, by giving people good internet access, ruined Burning Man. Seems highly plausible. One person reported that they managed to leave the internet behind anyway, so they still got the Burning Man experience. Tyler Cowen essentially despairs of reducing regulations or the number of bureaucrats, because it's all embedded in a complex web of regulations and institutions and our businesses rely upon all that to be able to function. Otherwise business would be paralyzed. There are some exceptions, you can perhaps wholesale axe entire departments like education. He suggests we focus on limiting regulations on new economic areas. He doesn't mention AI, but presumably that's a lot of what's motivating his views there. I agree that 'one does not simply' cut existing regulations in many cases, and that 'fire everyone and then it will all work out' is not a strategy (unless AI replaces them?), but also I think this is the kind of thing can be the danger of having too much detailed knowledge of all the things that could go wrong. One should generalize the idea of eliminating entire departments. So yes, right now you need the FDA to approve your drug (one of Tyler's examples) but… what if you didn't? I would still expect, if a new President were indeed to do massive firings on rhetoric and hope, that the result would be a giant cluster****. La Guardia switches to listing flights by departure time rather than order of destination, which in my mind makes no sense in the context of flights, that frequently get delayed, where you might want to look for an earlier flight or know what backups are if yours is cancelled or delayed or you miss it, and so on. It also gives you a sense of where one can and can't actually go to when from where you are. For trains it makes more sense to sort by time, since you are so often not going to and might not even know the train's final destination. I got a surprising amount of pushback about all that on Twitter, some people felt very strongly the other way, as if to list by name was violating some sacred value of accessibility or something. Anti-Social Media Elon Musk provides good data on his followers to help with things like poll calibration, reports 73%-27% lea...

AUF1
Ex-Polizist Schubert: Überwachung durch Inlandsgeheimdienst – „Dieser Staat ist übergriffig geworden“

AUF1

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 12, 2024 3:36


Laut Angaben des Innenministeriums beobachtet der Verfassungsschutz 1.600 sogenannte „Delegitimierer des Staates“. AUF1 hat den ehemaligen Polizisten und Bestseller-Autor Stefan Schubert gefragt, ob er diese Zahl für realistisch hält. Und seine Antwort schockiert... Das aktuelle Buch von Stefan Schubert gibt es im AUF1-Shop: „Der geheime Krieg gegen Deutschland (https://www.auf1.shop/products/der-geheime-krieg-gegen-deutschland?_pos=2&_sid=4a986de3c&_ss=r)“

The Nonlinear Library
EA - The most basic rationality techniques are often neglected by Vasco Grilo

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2024 3:43


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The most basic rationality techniques are often neglected, published by Vasco Grilo on August 27, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This is a crosspost for The most basic rationality techniques are often neglected and Rationality and discipline by Stefan Schubert, published on 30 August and 15 September 2021. The most basic rationality techniques are often neglected and Rationality and discipline How much can we "debias" ourselves? What should we do to become more rational? When discussing those issues, people usually focus on sophisticated debiasing techniques ("pre-mortem") and advanced concepts from epistemology and statistics. What's often forgotten is that we already have a bunch of very simple but effective techniques for improving our rationality, such as (cf. Grice's maxims): "Don't believe things for which you lack evidence. And don't say such things in discussions." "Don't make irrelevant personal attacks." "Don't attack straw men." "Define your terms clearly." "Make one point at a time." "Try not to be too emotional when thinking about heated issues." It seems to me that irrationality regarding moral and political issues (arguably the most important form of irrationality) is very often due to failure to apply these very simple techniques. That was certainly my experience when I argument-checked opinion pieces and election debates. Most fallacies I identified were extremely basic and boring (cf. my post Frequent fallacies). Maybe the most common was failure to provide evidence for claims that need evidence. So maybe what we need to do to make people more rational isn't primarily to teach them sophisticated debiasing techniques and advanced concepts. They are costly to learn, and most people have other, more pressing things to attend to. People who suggest new interventions and social reforms often neglect such time and attention costs. One might also suspect that people focus on the more sophisticated rationality techniques partly because they find them more interesting to think about than the basic and boring ones. Instead, maybe we should focus on getting people to apply the most basic techniques consistently. Some of the sophisticated techniques are no doubt useful, but I'm not sure the primary focus should be on them. To make people actually use these basic techniques, what's needed is strong social norms, saying that you shouldn't believe or say things you lack evidence for, that you should define your terms clearly, etc. The strength of such norms have varied a lot over the course of history - and still varies today across different contexts. And my sense is that people's actual rationality by and large reflects the strength of those rationality norms. So these norms can be pushed more or less, and I would guess that they are not yet pushed as much as they realistically could be pushed. Still, it's obviously a difficult task, and I'm unsure about how to best go about it. (This post was first posted on Facebook, 3 February 2020. Slightly revised.) Rationality and discipline Rationality has many aspects. It seems to me that the rationalist community often focuses on the fun bits, such as self-improvement, musings on one's own thought-processes, and speculative theorising (though no doubt there are important exceptions). What then gets a bit lost is that rationality is to a large extent about discipline, restraint, and rigour: things that aren't necessarily fun for most people. This is maybe natural given that the community is at least partly built around an intrinsic interest in rationality - they normally don't provide strong extrinsic incentives (e.g. degrees, money) to students of rationality. Nevertheless, I think a stronger emphasis on these less intrinsically appealing aspects of rationality is important. From Facebook, 16 January 2020. Thanks...

AUF1
Stefan Schubert zu Nordstream: Landesverrat von Scholz bewiesen?

AUF1

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2024 11:07


Neue Enthüllungen zur Nordstream-Sprengung!

AUF1
Ex-Polizist Schubert: „Geheimdienst-Methoden könnten bald alle betreffen“

AUF1

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2024 5:29


Heimliche Hausdurchsuchungen: Das sind die neuesten Pläne von Nancy Faesers Innenministerium. Doch was sagt der ehemalige Polizist und Bestseller-Autor Stefan Schubert dazu?

AUF1
Stefan Schubert deckt auf: „Wir sehen einen geheimen Krieg der Globalisten!“

AUF1

Play Episode Listen Later May 25, 2024 61:53


Der ehemalige Polizist Stefan Schubert präsentiert seine Ermittlungsergebnisse und er hält fest: „Es tobt ein geheimer Krieg gegen Deutschland und Europa!“ Sehen Sie in diesem Gespräch mit Stefan Magnet eine aktuelle Lagebestimmung im Great Reset.

AUF1
Ex-Polizist Schubert: „Die deutsche Polizei ist blind in puncto Terrorgefahr“

AUF1

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2024 16:14


Die explosive Lage in Nahost werfe auch ihre Schatten auf Deutschland, wo muslimische Extremisten ihre Feindbilder pflegten und Anschläge planten, sagt Stefan Schubert im AUF1-Gespräch.

The Nonlinear Library
EA - Crises reveal centralisation by Vasco Grilo

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 28, 2024 9:28


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Crises reveal centralisation, published by Vasco Grilo on March 28, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This is a crosspost for Crises reveal centralisation by Stefan Schubert, published on 3 May 2023. An important question for people focused on AI risk, and indeed for anyone trying to influence the world, is: how centralised is power? Are there dominant actors that wield most of the power, or is it more equally distributed? We can ask this question on two levels: On the national level, how powerful is the central power - the government - relative to smaller actors, like private companies, nonprofits, and individual people? On the global level, how powerful are the most powerful countries - in particular, the United States - relative to smaller countries? I think there are some common heuristics that lead people to think that power is more decentralised than it is, on both of these levels. One of these heuristics is what we can call "extrapolation from normalcy": Extrapolation from normalcy: the view that an actor seeming to have power here and now (in relatively normal times) is a good proxy for it having power tout court. It's often propped up by a related assumption about the epistemology of power: Naive behaviourism about power (naive behaviourism, for short): the view that there is a direct correspondence between an actor's power and the official and easily observable actions it takes. In other words, if an actor is powerful, then that will be reflected by official and easily observable actions, like widely publicised company investments or official government policies. Extrapolation from normalcy plus naive behaviourism suggest that the distribution of power is relatively decentralised on the national level. In normal times, companies are pursuing many projects that have consequential social effects (e.g. the Internet and its many applications). While these projects are subject to government regulation to some extent, private companies normally retain a lot of leeway (depending on what they want to do). This suggests (more so, the more you believe in naive behaviourism) that companies have quite a lot of power relative to governments in normal times. And extrapolation from normalcy implies that that this isn't just true in normal times, but holds true more generally. Similarly, extrapolation from normalcy plus naive behaviourism suggest that power is relatively decentralised on the global level, where we compare the relative power of different countries. There are nearly 200 independent countries in the world, and most of them make a lot of official decisions without overt foreign interference. While it's true that invasions do occur, they are relatively rare (the Russian invasion of Ukraine notwithstanding). Thus, naive behaviourism implies that power is decentralised under normal times, whereas extrapolation from normalcy extends that inference beyond normal times. But in my view, the world is more centralised than these heuristics suggest. The easiest way to see that is to look at crises. During World War II, much of the economy was put under centralised control one way or another in many countries. Similarly, during Covid, many governments drastically curtailed individual liberties and companies' economic activities (rightly or wrongly). And countries that want to acquire nuclear weapons (which can cause crises and wars) have found that they have less room to manoeuvre than the heuristics under discussion suggest. Accordingly, the US and other powerful nations have been able to reduce nuclear proliferation substantially (even though they've not been able to stop it entirely). It is true that smaller actors have a substantial amount of freedom to shape their own destiny under normal times, and that's an important fact. But still, who makes what official de...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
Effectively encouraging people to give more (with Josh Greene)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2023 87:33


Read the full transcript here. How can people be encouraged in ways that are more natural and less manipulative to increase the amounts they give to charities? Why are arguments based on the effectiveness of charitable organizations less compelling to most people than we'd like for them to be? What percentages of a social group should be "doves", "hawks", "eagles", or something else? To what extent should our knowledge about our evolutionary history shape our values? Why are children more likely than adults to engage in prosocial behaviors towards strangers? Aside from anecdotal evidence, how do we know that political polarization in the US has been increasing over the last few decades? How can bridges of respect and trust be built between warring political tribes? How can people even begin to undertake the project of building bridges across political divides if they have no interest in understanding or engaging with the other side — especially if they believe that the other side is completely deranged, evil, or otherwise unfit to govern at any level? What is "deep pragmatism"? What might a "psychologically-informed" version of utilitarianism look like?Josh Greene is Professor of Psychology and a member of the Center for Brain Science faculty at Harvard University. Much of his research has focused on the psychology and neuroscience of moral judgment, examining the interplay between emotion and reason in moral dilemmas. His more recent work studies critical features of individual and collective intelligence. His current neuroscientific research examines how the brain combines concepts to form thoughts and how thoughts are manipulated in reasoning and imagination. His current behavioral research examines strategies for improving social decision-making and alleviating intergroup conflict. He is also the author of Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. Learn more about him at his website, joshua-greene.net.Further reading:"Boosting the impact of charitable giving with donation bundling and micromatching" by Lucius Caviola and Joshua GreeneGiving Multiplier (w/ Clearer Thinking promo code): Use the link yourself, or send it to a friend so that they can get matches on their donations!"The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism" by Lucius Caviola, Stefan Schubert, and Joshua GreeneMoral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them by Joshua Greene Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director Josh Castle — Producer Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer Uri Bram — Factotum WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Miles Kestran — Marketing Music Lee Rosevere Josh Woodward Broke for Free zapsplat.com wowamusic Quiet Music for Tiny Robots Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

The Nonlinear Library
EA - Linkpost: Dwarkesh Patel interviewing Carl Shulman by Stefan Schubert

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2023 1:09


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Linkpost: Dwarkesh Patel interviewing Carl Shulman, published by Stefan Schubert on June 14, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. We ended up talking for 8 hours, so I'm splitting this episode into 2 parts. This part is about Carl's model of an intelligence explosion, which integrates everything from: how fast algorithmic progress & hardware improvements in AI are happening, what primate evolution suggests about the scaling hypothesis, how soon before AIs could do large parts of AI research themselves, and whether there would be faster and faster doublings of AI researchers, how quickly robots produced from existing factories could take over the economy. We also discuss the odds of a takeover based on whether the AI is aligned before the intelligence explosion happens, and Carl explains why he's more optimistic than Eliezer. The next part, which I'll release next week, is about all the specific mechanisms of an AI takeover, plus a whole bunch of other galaxy brain stuff. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org

80,000 Hours Podcast with Rob Wiblin
Rob's thoughts on the FTX bankruptcy

80,000 Hours Podcast with Rob Wiblin

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2022 5:35


In this episode, usual host of the show Rob Wiblin gives his thoughts on the recent collapse of FTX. Click here for an official 80,000 Hours statement. And here are links to some potentially relevant 80,000 Hours pieces: • Episode #24 of this show – Stefan Schubert on why it's a bad idea to break the rules, even if it's for a good cause. • Is it ever OK to take a harmful job in order to do more good? An in-depth analysis • What are the 10 most harmful jobs? • Ways people trying to do good accidentally make things worse, and how to avoid them

The Nonlinear Library
EA - Remuneration In Effective Altruism by Stefan Schubert

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 25, 2022 4:01


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Remuneration In Effective Altruism, published by Stefan Schubert on July 25, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. I've written a series of posts where I discuss remuneration/compensation and demandingness in effective altruism. Here I briefly summarise that series and explain how the different posts fit together. My key claim is that remuneration in effective altruism should, on average, be substantial. That's mainly because of incentive effects, which I expect to outweigh the financial costs (partly thanks to the improved funding situation in effective altruism). In part, my series can be seen as a response to the recent articles on the EA Forum that express worries about greater effective altruist spending and increased remuneration. I think effective altruism has already been moving in the direction of higher average remuneration for the last couple of years, and I suggest that development should continue. To an extent, I think it represents a convergence with standards and norms on the regular labour market. Effective altruists are sensitive to monetary incentives just like other people—maybe more so than is sometimes acknowledged. I discuss several counter-arguments; i.e. arguments for lower remuneration. I am relatively critical of the argument that effective altruists should use willingness to work for low remuneration as a costly signal of value-alignment. By contrast, I'm a bit more ambivalent about reputational arguments. Besides substantial average remuneration I also argue for remuneration variance. Specifically, I argue that effective altruist funders should use monetary incentives to encourage people to take particularly impactful jobs. Given the likely large differences in impact between jobs, I expect that to be worth it. I also discuss more general and conceptual issues in several posts. I argue that just as effective altruists should be neutral between different causes, so they should be neutral between the use of different resources (e.g. time vs money), as well as between different mindsets (e.g. a frugality mindset vs other mindsets). It seems to me that effective altruists aren't always neutral in these senses, but that we sometimes cling on a bit nostalgically to the mindset and the approaches that the movement had at the start. Instead, I think we should be as open to changing our minds on these issues as we are regarding cause selection. I also show that to achieve resource neutrality, we can conceptualise use of our time in terms of its potential monetary value. These are just some broad qualitative sketches, similar in style to the posts I respond to. I try to define the conceptual landscape and share some intuitions. Obviously this is not nearly as strong evidence as hard data would be. I think it could be valuable if some effective altruist researchers—e.g. researchers with an economics training—studied these issues in more detail. They could collect data on effective altruist remuneration and try to estimate effects of different remuneration levels on impact. Since effective altruism is growing, it seems increasingly plausible to have researchers dedicated to studying such issues. It also seems to me that effective altruists have devoted far less time to these issues than to cause prioritisation. Just as we do data-driven research on the cost-effectiveness of different causes, so we should do data-driven research on the cost-effectiveness of different remuneration levels. Such research could potentially also help make discussions about remuneration levels less emotional and more detachedly focused on impact. The posts in chronological order: Resource neutrality and levels vs kinds of demandingness Monetising time-donations An argument against costly signalling in effective altruism Deliberate altruism and costly signalling The productiv...

The Nonlinear Library
EA - The Future Might Not Be So Great. by Jacy

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2022 64:40


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Future Might Not Be So Great., published by Jacy on June 30, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Many thanks for feedback and insight from Kelly Anthis, Tobias Baumann, Jan Brauner, Max Carpendale, Sasha Cooper, Sandro Del Rivo, Michael Dello-Iacovo, Michael Dickens, Anthony DiGiovanni, Marius Hobbhahn, Ali Ladak, Simon Knutsson, Greg Lewis, Kelly McNamara, John Mori, Thomas Moynihan, Caleb Ontiveros, Sean Richardson, Zachary Rudolph, Manny Rutinel, Stefan Schubert, Michael St. Jules, Nell Watson, Peter Wildeford, and Miranda Zhang. This essay is in part an early draft of an upcoming book chapter on the topic, and I will add the citation here when it is available. Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ⸻ Cloud Atlas (2012) Summary The prioritization of extinction risk reduction depends on an assumption that the expected value (EV) of human survival and interstellar colonization is highly positive. In the feather-ruffling spirit of EA Criticism and Red Teaming, this essay lays out many arguments for a positive EV and a negative EV. This matters because, insofar as the EV is lower than we previously believed, we should shift some longtermist resources away from the current focus on extinction risk reduction. Extinction risks are the most extreme category of population risks, which are risks to the number of individuals in the long-term future. We could shift resources towards the other type of long-term risk, quality risks, which are risks to the moral value of individuals in the long-term future, such as whether they experience suffering or happiness. Promising approaches to improve the quality of the long-term future include some forms of AI safety, moral circle expansion, cooperative game theory, digital minds, and global priorities research. There may be substantial overlap with extinction risk reduction approaches, but in this case and in general, much more research is needed. I think that the effective altruism (EA) emphasis on existential risk could be replaced by a mindset of existential pragmatism: Rather than ensuring humanity expands its reach throughout the universe, we must ensure that the universe will be better for it. I have spoken to many longtermist EAs about this crucial consideration, and for most of them, that was their first time explicitly considering the EV of human expansion. My sense is that many more are considering it now, and the community is growing more skeptical of highly positive EV as the correct estimate. I'm eager to hear more people's thoughts on the all-things-considered estimate of EV, and I discuss the limited work done on this topic to date in the “Related Work” section. In the following table, I lay out the object-level arguments on the EV of human expansion, and the rest of the essay details meta-considerations (e.g., option value). The table also includes the strongest supporting arguments that increase the evidential weight of their corresponding argument and the strongest counterarguments that reduce the weight. The arguments are not mutually exclusive and are merely intended as broad categories that reflect the most common and compelling arguments for at least some people (not necessarily me) on this topic. For example, Historical Progress and Value Through Intent have been intertwined insofar as humans intentionally create progress, so users of this table should be mindful that they do not overcount (e.g., double count) the same evidence. I handle this in my own thinking by splitting an overlapping piece of evidence among its categories in proportion to a rough sense of fit in those categories. In the associated spreadsheet, I list my own subjective evidential weight scores where positive numbers indicate evid...

The Nonlinear Library
EA - Future Matters: April 2022 by Pablo

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2022 26:41


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Future Matters: April 2022, published by Pablo on April 23, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. The remedies for all our diseases will be discovered long after we are dead; and the world will be made a fit place to live in. It is to be hoped that those who live in those days will look back with sympathy to their known and unknown benefactors. John Stuart Mill Future Matters is a newsletter about longtermism. Each month we collect and summarize longtermism-relevant research, share news from the longtermism community, and feature a conversation with a prominent longtermist. You can also subscribe on Substack, listen on your favorite podcast platform and follow on Twitter. Research Scott Alexander's "Long-termism" vs. "existential risk" worries that “longtermism” may be a worse brand (though not necessarily a worse philosophy) than “existential risk”. It seems much easier to make someone concerned about transformative AI by noting that it might kill them and everyone else, than by pointing out its effects on people in the distant future. We think that Alexander raises a valid worry, although we aren't sure the worry favors the “existential risk” branding over the “longtermism” branding as much as he suggests: existential risks are, after all, defined as risks to humanity's long-term potential. Both of these concepts, in fact, attempt to capture the core idea that what ultimately matters is mostly located in the far future: existential risk uses the language of “potential” and emphasizes threats to it, whereas longtermism instead expresses the idea in terms of value and the duties it creates. Maybe the “existential risk” branding seems to address Alexander's worry better because it draws attention to the threats to this value, which are disproportionately (but not exclusively) located in the short-term, while the “longtermism” branding emphasizes instead the determinants of value, which are in the far future. In General vs AI-specific explanations of existential risk neglect, Stefan Schubert asks why we systematically neglect existential risk. The standard story invokes general explanations, such as cognitive biases and coordination problems. But Schubert notes that people seem to have specific biases that cause them to underestimate AI risk, e.g. because AI scenarios sound outlandish and counter-intuitive. If unaligned AI is the greatest source of existential risk in the near-term, then these AI-specific biases could explain most of our neglect. Max Roser's The future is vast is a powerful new introduction to longtermism. His graphical representations do well to convey the scale of humanity's potential, and have made it onto the Wikipedia entry for longtermism. Thomas Kwa's Effectiveness is a conjunction of multipliers makes the important observation that (1) a person's impact can be decomposed into a series of impact “multipliers” and that (2) these terms interact multiplicatively, rather than additively, with each other. For example, donating 80% instead of 10% multiplies impact by a factor of 8 and earning $1m/year instead of $250k/year multiplies impact by a factor of 4; but doing both of these things multiplies impact by a factor of 32. Kwa shows that many other common EA choices are best seen as multipliers of impact, and notes that multipliers related to judgment and ambition are especially important for longtermists. The first installment in a series on “learning from crisis”, Jan Kulveit's Experimental longtermism: theory needs data (co-written with Gavin Leech) recounts the author's motivation to launch Epidemic Forecasting, a modelling and forecasting platform that sought to present probabilistic data to decisionmakers and the general public. Kulveit realized that his "longtermist" models had relatively straightforward implications for the COVID pandemic, ...

The Nonlinear Library
EA - EA/Rationalist Safety Nets: Promising, but Arduous by Ozzie Gooen

The Nonlinear Library

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 29, 2021 7:33


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA/Rationalist Safety Nets: Promising, but Arduous, published by Ozzie Gooen on December 29, 2021 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Rigor: Quickly written (~6 hours). Originally made as a Facebook post that emphasized the “Potential Challenges” section. There's some discussion there. Epistemic Status: This mostly comes from personal experiences and discussions with community members in the last few years. Many thanks to Aaron Gertler, Stefan Schubert, Julia Wise, and Evan Gaensbauer for feedback directly on this post. Also, thanks for everyone involved in the Facebook discussion. Introduction I've been around EA/rationality for several years now (starting in 2008, during college). I've seen several instances where promising people (myself included) could have really used some help. Potential help includes: Money Good mental health support Friends or helpers, for when things are tough Insurance (broader than health insurance) I'm based in the United States. Government benefits here are substantially worse than in some European countries, so it's possible these concerns don't apply elsewhere. I think interventions in these areas could be valuable. However, I believe they're unusually challenging to implement. I encourage future groups tackling this space to plan accordingly. I also hope that people upset with a lack of existing infrastructure can sympathize with the challenges around it. Also, see this post for related discussion: An Emergency Fund for Effective Altruists.[1] Evidence of the Problem Some evidence of what I'm referring to includes: Howie Lempel's podcast with 80,000 Hours went into detail about hard times he's had and help he received. I'm thankful that this information was made public. It's probably the best case study we have now within our community. I think it's pretty clear that Howie Lempel is doing great work, and his situation might have turned grimmer if things had gone a bit differently, including if he had less support. While I'm happy he had this support, this support seemed exceptional compared to other things I've seen and would expect. I have had a few scares. Earlier on in my career, I was very low on money and had health problems that I was worried might put me on disability or worse. I've known several effective altruists and rationalists who have been very low on funding for some possibly-crucial parts of their lives. Some have gone on later to do very well, but it's easy to imagine it going differently. Unlike with Howie Lempel's case, they had rough spots before they did valuable work. In general, the situation for many people in the United States (including and outside of our communities) seems pretty bad, so the prior is poor. Many people have feeble social support structures. (There's quite a bit of literature on this topic.) Related Infrastructure Our communities already have a few valuable initiatives. Some of these include (just off the top of my head): The CEA community health team Lightcone Infrastructure The Centre for EA Learning and Research REACH Perhaps we can learn from religious communities. A while ago, I chatted to a Mormon effective altruist who explained how their system works. Mormons regularly tithe 10% of their income to the Mormon church, but in return, the church seems to take care of them when they're down. I've recently been watching videos from Peter Santenello about the Hasidic Jewish and the Amish communities, and they seem to have similar systems. Potential Challenges At this point, there are some wealthy people in and around effective altruism. So if there are straightforward spending opportunities that would be competitive through an EA lens, there could be funding for them. Unfortunately, I think setting up a safety net would result in several nasty complications. These might be particularly grueling ...

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts
Growth and the case against randomista development by HaukeHillebrandt, John G. Halstead

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2021 57:20


welcome to the nonlinear library, where we use text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and ea communities into audio. this is: Growth and the case against randomista development, published by HaukeHillebrandt, John G. Halstead on the effective altruism forum. Update, 3/8/2021: I (Hauke) gave a talk at Effective Altruism Global on this post: Summary Randomista development (RD) is a form of development economics which evaluates and promotes interventions that can be tested by randomised controlled trials (RCTs). It is exemplified by GiveWell (which primarily works in health) and the randomista movement in economics (which primarily works in economic development). Here we argue for the following claims, which we believe to be quite weak: Prominent economists make plausible arguments which suggest that research on and advocacy for economic growth in low- and middle-income countries is more cost-effective than the things funded by proponents of randomista development. Effective altruists have devoted too little attention to these arguments. Assessing the soundness of these arguments should be a key focus for current generation-focused effective altruists over the next few years. We hope to start a conversation on these questions, and potentially to cause a major reorientation within EA. We also believe the following stronger claims: 4. Improving health is not the best way to increase growth. 5. A ~4 person-year research effort will find donation opportunities working on economic growth in LMICs which are substantially better than GiveWell's top charities from a current generation human welfare-focused point of view. However, economic growth is not all that matters. GDP misses many crucial determinants of human welfare, including leisure time, inequality, foregone consumption from investment, public goods, social connection, life expectancy, and so on. A top priority for effective altruists should be to assess the best way to increase human welfare outside of the constraints of randomista development, i.e. allowing intervention that have not or cannot be tested by RCTs. We proceed as follows: We define randomista development and contrast it with research and advocacy for growth-friendly policies in low- and middle-income countries. We show that randomista development is overrepresented in EA, and that, in contradistinction, research on and advocacy for growth-friendly economic policy (we refer to this as growth throughout) is underrepresented We then show why some prominent economists believe that, a priori, growth is much more effective than most RD interventions. We present a quantitative model that tries to formalize these intuitions and allows us to compare global development interventions with economic growth interventions. The model suggests that under plausible assumptions a hypothetical growth intervention can be thousands of times more cost-effective than typical RD interventions such as cash-transfers. However, when these assumptions are relaxed and compared to the very good RD interventions, growth interventions are on a similar level of effectiveness as RD interventions. We consider various possible objections and qualifications to our argument. Acknowledgements Thanks to Stefan Schubert, Stephen Clare, Greg Lewis, Michael Wiebe, Sjir Hoeijmakers, Johannes Ackva, Gregory Thwaites, Will MacAskill, Aidan Goth, Sasha Cooper, and Carl Shulman for comments. Any mistakes are our own. Opinions are ours, not those of our employers. Marinella Capriati at GiveWell commented on this piece, and the piece does not represent her views or those of GiveWell. 1. Defining Randomista Development We define randomista development (RD) as an approach to development economics which investigates, evaluates and recommends only interventions which can be tested by randomised controlled trials (RCTs). RD can take low-risk or more “hits-based” forms. Effective altruists have especially focused on the low-risk for...

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts
EA Debate Championship & Lecture Series by Dan Lahav, sella

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2021 20:50


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA Debate Championship & Lecture Series, published by Dan Lahav, sella on the Effective Altruism Forum. Executive Summary On October 23-25 2020, we hosted the inaugural online EA Debate Championship - a three-day debate championship with EA-themed topics. The championship had 150+ participants, from roughly 25 countries, that span 6 continents. The championship was supported by the World Universities Debating Championship, aka WUDC - one of the largest international student-driven events in the world. There were a total of 7 debate rounds - 5 preliminary rounds and 2 knockout rounds. The knockout rounds were held in 2 different language proficiency categories to promote inclusivity. In total over the course of that weekend over 500 EA-related speeches were delivered. The championship featured a Distinguished Lecture Series as non-mandatory preparation material - 9 lectures, 3 debate exercises and 1 Q&A session containing introductory EA materials (totalling ~10 hours), with top EA speakers including Ishaan Guptasarma, Joey Savoie, Karolina Sarek, Kat Woods, Lewis Bollard, Olivia Larsen, Nick Beckstead, and Will MacAskill. The debate exercises were filmed by world-renowned debate teams. The championship included a research component to examine if debating on EA topics changes the stance of debaters towards EA values. Most of the participants were not familiar with EA prior to the competition, or had limited exposure to core EA ideas. However, when asked after the tournament many were highly positive on the prospect of attending a future EA debating championship, and reported a strong willingness to continue their engagement with the EA community. During the tournament, over $2,000 were donated to effective charities by the participants (with most of the funds going to the Against Malaria Foundation). The funds were doubled via donation matching provided by Open Philanthropy. The competition was initiated and organized by members of EA Israel who are also debaters; with the support of several highly influential international debaters and the World Championship. This collaboration was possible due to the strong ties that exist between the debating community and the EA community in Israel. We think that there is room to building similar ties on a more global scale. In the rest of the post we will explain our motivation to run the event, describe the program and its outcomes in detail, share what we have learned from the process, and discuss our next steps. Organizing the tournament was an effort of a great many. We thank them all, and would like to stress that any mistakes or inaccuracies in the description are our own. In particular we would like to thank Adel Ahmed, Ameera Moore, Barbara Batycka, Bosung Baik, Chaerin Lee, Connor O'Brien, Dana Green, Emily Frizell, Enting Lee, Harish Natarajan, Ishaan Guptasarma, Jaeyoung Choi, Jessica Musulin, Joey Savoie, Kallina Basli, Karolina Sarek, Kat Woods, Lewis Bollard, Milos Marajanovic, Mubarrat Wassey, Nick Beckstead, Olivia Larsen, Omer Nevo, Sally Kwon, Salwaa Khan, Seoyoun, Seungyoun Lee, Sharmila Parmanand, Tricia Park, Will MacAskill and Yeaeun Shin for their contributions in running the tournament, filming lectures or creating exercises; to David Moss, David Reinstein and Stefan Schubert for their advice on running the tournament survey; and to the many incredibly qualified debate adjudicators & speakers that made the event possible Motivation We initiated this effort due to the impression that themed debating tournaments (along with matching preparation materials) can be a relatively broad yet high-fidelity outreach opportunity. We believe this is the case for several reasons: The international debating community mostly consists of undergraduate students from around 50 countries (elite universities are represented ac...

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts
Effective Altruism and Free Riding by sbehmer

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2021 19:09


welcome to the nonlinear library, where we use text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and ea communities into audio. this is: Effective Altruism and Free Riding, published by sbehmer on the effective altruism forum. Write a Review I'd like to thank Parker Whitfill, Andrew Kao, Stefan Schubert, and Phil Trammell for very helpful comments. Errors are my own. Many people have argued that those involved in effective altruism should “be nice”, meaning that they should cooperate when facing prisoner's dilemma type situations ([1] [2] [3]). While I believe that some of these are convincing arguments, it seems to be underappreciated just how often someone attempting to do good will face prisoner's dilemmas. Previous authors seem to highlight mostly zero-sum conflict between opposing value systems [3] [4] or common-sense social norms like lying [1]. However, the problem faced by a group of people trying to do good is effectively a public goods problem [10]; this means that, except in rare cases (like where people 100% agree on moral values), someone looking to do good will be playing a prisoner's dilemma against others looking to do good. In this post I first give some simple examples to illustrate how collective action problems almost surely arise between a group of people looking to do good. I then argue that the standard cause-prioritization methodology used within EA recommends to defect (“free-ride”) in these prisoner's dilemma settings. Finally, I discuss some potential implications of this, including that there may be harms from popularizing EA thinking and that there may be large gains from improving cooperation. Main Points: 1. A group of people trying to do good are playing a form of a public goods game. Except in rare circumstances, this will lead to inefficiencies due to free-riding (defecting), and thus gains from cooperation. 2. Free-riding comes from individuals putting resources toward causes which they personally view as neglected (being under-valued by other people's value systems) at the expense of causes for which there is more consensus. 3. Standard EA cause prioritization recommends that people free-ride on others' efforts to do good (at least when interacting with people not in the EA community). 4. If existing societal norms are to cooperate when trying to do good, EA may cause harm by encouraging people to free-ride. 5. There may be large gains from improving cooperation. Collective Action Problems Among People Trying to do Good Note that the main argument in this section is not original to me. Others within EA have written about this, some in more general settings than what I look at here [10]. The standard collective action problem is in a setting where people are selfish (each individual cares about their own consumption) but there's some public good, say clean air, that they all value. The main issue is that when deciding whether to pollute the air or not, an individual doesn't consider the negative impacts that pollution will have on everyone else. This creates a prisoner's dilemma, where they would all be better off if they didn't pollute, but any individual is better off by polluting (defecting). These problems are often solved through governments or through informal norms of cooperation. Here I argue that this collective action problem is almost surely present among a group of people trying to do good, even if every member of the group is completely unselfish. All that is needed is that people's value systems place some weight on how good the world is (they are not simply warm-glow givers) and that they have some disagreement about what counts as good (there's some difference in values). The key intuition is that in an uncooperative setting each altruist will donate to causes based on their own value system without considering how much other altruists value those causes. This leads to underinvestment in causes which many different value systems place positive weight ...

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts
Launching Utilitarianism.net: An Introductory Online Textbook on Utilitarianism by Darius_M

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2021 12:18


Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Launching Utilitarianism.net: An Introductory Online Textbook on Utilitarianism, published by Darius_M on the AI Alignment Forum. We are excited to announce the launch of Utilitarianism.net, an introductory online textbook on utilitarianism, co-created by William MacAskill, James Aung and me over the past year. The website aims to provide a concise, accessible and engaging introduction to modern utilitarianism, functioning as an online textbook targeted at the undergraduate level . We hope that over time this will become the main educational resource for students and anyone else who wants to learn about utilitarianism online. The content of the website aims to be understandable to a broad audience, avoiding philosophical jargon where possible and providing definitions where necessary. Please note that the website is still in beta. We plan to produce an improved and more comprehensive version of this website by September 2020. We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions on what we could change about the website or add to it. The website currently has articles on the following topics and we aim to add further content in the future: Introduction to Utilitarianism Principles and Types of Utilitarianism Utilitarianism and Practical Ethics Objections to Utilitarianism and Responses Acting on Utilitarianism Utilitarian Thinkers Resources and Further Reading We are particularly grateful for the help of the following people with reviewing, writing, editing or otherwise supporting the creation of Utilitarianism.net: Lucy Hampton, Stefan Schubert, Pablo Stafforini, Laura Pomarius, John Halstead, Tom Adamczewski, Jonas Vollmer, Aron Vallinder, Ben Pace, Alex Holness-Tofts, Huw Thomas, Aidan Goth, Chi Nguyen, Eli Nathan, Nadia Mir-Montazeri and Ivy Mazzola. The following is a partial reproduction of the Introduction to Utilitarianism article from Utilitarianism.net. Please note that it does not include the footnotes, further resources, and the sections on Arguments in Favor of Utilitarianism and Objections to Utilitarianism. If you are interested in the full version of the article, please read it on the website. Introduction to Utilitarianism "The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end." - John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism was developed to answer the question of which actions are right and wrong, and why. Its core idea is that we ought to act to improve the wellbeing of everyone by as much as possible. Compared to other ethical theories, it is unusually demanding and may require us to make substantial changes to how we lead our lives. Perhaps more so than any other ethical theory, it has caused a fierce philosophical debate between its proponents and critics. Why Do We Need Moral Theories? When we make moral judgments in everyday life, we often rely on our intuition. If you ask yourself whether or not it is wrong to eat meat, or to lie to a friend, or to buy sweatshop goods, you probably have a strong gut moral view on the topic. But there are problems with relying merely on our moral intuition. Historically, people held beliefs we now consider morally horrific. In Western societies, it was once firmly believed to be intuitively obvious that people of color and women have fewer rights than white men; that homosexuality is wrong; and that it was permissible to own slaves. We now see these moral intuitions as badly misguided. This historical track record gives us reason to be concerned that we, in the modern era, may also be unknowingly guilty of serious, large-scale wrongdoing. It would be a very lucky coincidence if the present generation were the first generation whose intuitions were perfectly morally correct. Also, people have conflicting moral intuitions ab...

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts
Virtues for Real-World Utilitarians by Stefan_Schubert, Lucius_Caviola

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum Top Posts

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2021 2:26


welcome to the nonlinear library, where we use text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and ea communities into audio. This is: Virtues for Real-World Utilitarians, published by Stefan_Schubert, Lucius_Caviola on the effective altruism forum. This is a linkpost for In this paper, we argue that utilitarians who try to act on utilitarianism in the real world face many psychological obstacles, ranging from selfishness to moral biases to limits to epistemic and instrumental rationality. To overcome the most important of these obstacles, utilitarians need to cultivate a number of virtues. We argue that utilitarians should prioritize six virtues. Moderate altruism - to set aside some of their resources for others. Moral expansiveness - to care about distant beneficiaries. Effectiveness-focus - to prioritize the most effective interventions. Truth-seeking - to overcome epistemic biases to find those effective interventions. Collaborativeness - to engage in fruitful collaboration with other utilitarians, as well as non-utilitarians. Determination - to consistently act on utilitarian principles with persistence and deliberation In addition, we argue that utilitarians should normally not engage in harm for the greater good, but should stick to common sense norms such as norms against lying and stealing. So in our view, real-world utilitarianism converges with common sense morality in some respects. Utilitarians should follow common sense norms and should not feel that they have to sacrifice almost all of their resources for others, in contrast to what it might seem at first glance. But in other ways, real-world utilitarianism diverges from common sense morality. Because some opportunities to do good are so much more effective than others, utilitarians should cultivate virtues that allow them to take those opportunities, such as effectiveness-focus and moral expansiveness. Those virtues are not emphasized by common sense morality. Some of our suggested virtues are commonly associated with utilitarianism. Moral expansiveness is maybe the clearest example. By contrast, virtues such as truth-seeking, collaborativeness, and determination do not tend to be associated with utilitarianism, and are not conceptually tied to it. But empirically, it just turns out that they are very important in order to maximize utilitarian impact in the real world. thanks for listening. to help us out with the nonlinear library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
EA Efficacy and Community Norms (with Stefan Schubert)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2021 70:29


How can people be more effective in their altruism? Is it better for people to give to good causes in urgent situations or on a regular basis? What causes people to donate to less effective charities even when presented with evidence that other charities might be more effective? We can make geographically distant events seem salient locally by (for example) showing them on TV, but how can we make possible future events seem more salient? How much more effective are the most effective charities than the average? How do altruists avoid being exploited (in a game theoretic sense)? What sorts of norms are common in the EA community?Stefan Schubert is a researcher in philosophy and psychology at the University of Oxford, working on questions of relevance for effective altruism. In particular, he studies why most donations don't go to the most effective charities and what we can do to change it. He also studies what norms we should have if we want to do the most good, as well as the psychology of the long-term future. You can email him at stefanfredrikschubert@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at @StefanFSchubert, or learn more about him at stefanfschubert.com.Further reading:"The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism""The many obstacles to effective giving""Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities' effectiveness""Supportive Scepticism"

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
EA Efficacy and Community Norms (with Stefan Schubert)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2021 70:29


How can people be more effective in their altruism? Is it better for people to give to good causes in urgent situations or on a regular basis? What causes people to donate to less effective charities even when presented with evidence that other charities might be more effective? We can make geographically distant events seem salient locally by (for example) showing them on TV, but how can we make possible future events seem more salient? How much more effective are the most effective charities than the average? How do altruists avoid being exploited (in a game theoretic sense)? What sorts of norms are common in the EA community?Stefan Schubert is a researcher in philosophy and psychology at the University of Oxford, working on questions of relevance for effective altruism. In particular, he studies why most donations don't go to the most effective charities and what we can do to change it. He also studies what norms we should have if we want to do the most good, as well as the psychology of the long-term future. You can email him at stefanfredrikschubert@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at @StefanFSchubert, or learn more about him at stefanfschubert.com.Further reading:"The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism""The many obstacles to effective giving""Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities' effectiveness""Supportive Scepticism"[Read more]

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
EA Efficacy and Community Norms with Stefan Schubert

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2021 70:29


How can people be more effective in their altruism? Is it better for people to give to good causes in urgent situations or on a regular basis? What causes people to donate to less effective charities even when presented with evidence that other charities might be more effective? We can make geographically distant events seem salient locally by (for example) showing them on TV, but how can we make possible future events seem more salient? How much more effective are the most effective charities than the average? How do altruists avoid being exploited (in a game theoretic sense)? What sorts of norms are common in the EA community?Stefan Schubert is a researcher in philosophy and psychology at the University of Oxford, working on questions of relevance for effective altruism. In particular, he studies why most donations don't go to the most effective charities and what we can do to change it. He also studies what norms we should have if we want to do the most good, as well as the psychology of the long-term future. You can email him at stefanfredrikschubert@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at @StefanFSchubert, or learn more about him at stefanfschubert.com.Further reading:"The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism""The many obstacles to effective giving""Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities' effectiveness""Supportive Scepticism"

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
EA Efficacy and Community Norms with Stefan Schubert

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2021 70:29


How can people be more effective in their altruism? Is it better for people to give to good causes in urgent situations or on a regular basis? What causes people to donate to less effective charities even when presented with evidence that other charities might be more effective? We can make geographically distant events seem salient locally by (for example) showing them on TV, but how can we make possible future events seem more salient? How much more effective are the most effective charities than the average? How do altruists avoid being exploited (in a game theoretic sense)? What sorts of norms are common in the EA community? Stefan Schubert is a researcher in philosophy and psychology at the University of Oxford, working on questions of relevance for effective altruism. In particular, he studies why most donations don't go to the most effective charities and what we can do to change it. He also studies what norms we should have if we want to do the most good, as well as the psychology of the long-term future. You can email him at stefanfredrikschubert@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at @StefanFSchubert, or learn more about him at stefanfschubert.com. Further reading: "The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism" "The many obstacles to effective giving" "Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities' effectiveness" "Supportive Scepticism"

EARadio
Naïve effective altruism and the danger of neglecting psychology | Stefan Schubert

EARadio

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2021 17:40


Stefan discusses the importance of considering our own and others’ emotions and psychological limits when practising effective altruism. Stephan Schubert is a researcher at the Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab, University of Oxford, working in the intersection of moral psychology and philosophy. He focuses on psychological questions of relevance to effective altruism, such as why … Naïve effective altruism and the danger of neglecting psychology | Stefan Schubert Read More »

RT DEUTSCH – Erfahre Mehr
"Das ist ein täglicher Verfassungsbruch!" – Stefan Schubert im Gespräch

RT DEUTSCH – Erfahre Mehr

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2020 41:58


Der ehemalige Polizist und Sicherheitsexperte Stefan Schubert hat bereits mehrere Bestseller geschrieben und widmet sich in seinem neuen Buch mal wieder brenzligen innenpolitischen Fragen. Margarita Bityutski hat sich mit ihm über die aktuelle Situation in der Bundesrepublik unterhalten und darüber, ob das Buch bereits auch vor der Corona-Krise "Vorsicht Diktatur!" hätte heißen können.Das Interview in Videoform auf Youtube: https://youtu.be/aCF_0ARj04U 

Mind the Shift
5. Doing good better – Stefan Schubert

Mind the Shift

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2020 72:37


Why our charity is so ineffective. Why (just possibly) there is reason for optimism. And why we should plan for an extremely long-term future. Hear this Oxford psychology/philosophy researcher and Effective Altruism advocate answer mega-questions.

Future of Life Institute Podcast
FLI Podcast: The Psychology of Existential Risk and Effective Altruism with Stefan Schubert

Future of Life Institute Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2019 58:39


We could all be more altruistic and effective in our service of others, but what exactly is it that's stopping us? What are the biases and cognitive failures that prevent us from properly acting in service of existential risks, statistically large numbers of people, and long-term future considerations? How can we become more effective altruists? Stefan Schubert, a researcher at University of Oxford's Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab, explores questions like these at the intersection of moral psychology and philosophy. This conversation explores the steps that researchers like Stefan are taking to better understand psychology in service of doing the most good we can. Topics discussed include: -The psychology of existential risk, longtermism, effective altruism, and speciesism -Stefan's study "The Psychology of Existential Risks: Moral Judgements about Human Extinction" -Various works and studies Stefan Schubert has co-authored in these spaces -How this enables us to be more altruistic You can find the page and transcript for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2019/12/02/the-psychology-of-existential-risk-and-effective-altruism-with-stefan-schubert/ Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:31 Stefan's academic and intellectual journey 5:20 How large is this field? 7:49 Why study the psychology of X-risk and EA? 16:54 What does a better understanding of psychology here enable? 21:10 What are the cognitive limitations psychology helps to elucidate? 23:12 Stefan's study "The Psychology of Existential Risks: Moral Judgements about Human Extinction" 34:45 Messaging on existential risk 37:30 Further areas of study 43:29 Speciesism 49:18 Further studies and work by Stefan

Podcast Relationship Gera
Markus #16 Bist du voll Macht oder hast du vollmacht? / Stefan Schubert /22.09.2019

Podcast Relationship Gera

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2019 30:01


10 Uhr Neben Lobpreis und Predigt feiern wir gemeinsam das Abendmahl. Durch persönliche Beiträge hast du die Möglichkeit den Gottesdienst mitzugestalten. Der Gottesdienst findet in der ungeraden Kalenderwoche statt. 16 Uhr Moderner Lobpreis, eine lebensnahe Predigt und eine gemütliche Lounge zeichnen unseren Gottesdienst am Nachmittag aus. Der Gottesdienst findet in der geraden Kalenderwoche statt.

Podcast Relationship Gera
Markus #16 Bist du voll Macht oder hast du vollmacht? / Stefan Schubert /22.09.2019

Podcast Relationship Gera

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2019 30:01


10 Uhr Neben Lobpreis und Predigt feiern wir gemeinsam das Abendmahl. Durch persönliche Beiträge hast du die Möglichkeit den Gottesdienst mitzugestalten. Der Gottesdienst findet in der ungeraden Kalenderwoche statt. 16 Uhr Moderner Lobpreis, eine lebensnahe Predigt und eine gemütliche Lounge zeichnen unseren Gottesdienst am Nachmittag aus. Der Gottesdienst findet in der geraden Kalenderwoche statt.

Podcast Relationship Gera
Markus #16 Bist du voll Macht oder hast du vollmacht? / Stefan Schubert /22.09.2019

Podcast Relationship Gera

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2019 30:01


10 Uhr Neben Lobpreis und Predigt feiern wir gemeinsam das Abendmahl. Durch persönliche Beiträge hast du die Möglichkeit den Gottesdienst mitzugestalten. Der Gottesdienst findet in der ungeraden Kalenderwoche statt. 16 Uhr Moderner Lobpreis, eine lebensnahe Predigt und eine gemütliche Lounge zeichnen unseren Gottesdienst am Nachmittag aus. Der Gottesdienst findet in der geraden Kalenderwoche statt.

EARadio
EAG 2018 London: Psychology of existential risk and long termism

EARadio

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 28, 2019 26:39


Psychology of Existential Risk and Long Termism by Stefan Schubert from EA Global 2018: London Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEfA… Find out how to attend EA Global: https://www.eaglobal.org/. Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/effectivealt…

psychology existential risk stefan schubert ea global
Podcast Relationship Gera
Sieben Wege - Der Natur Typ / Stefan Schubert / 17.03.19

Podcast Relationship Gera

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2019 28:38


10 Uhr Neben Lobpreis und Predigt feiern wir gemeinsam das Abendmahl. Durch persönliche Beiträge hast du die Möglichkeit den Gottesdienst mitzugestalten. Der Gottesdienst findet in der ungeraden Kalenderwoche statt. 16 Uhr Moderner Lobpreis, eine lebensnahe Predigt und eine gemütliche Lounge zeichnen unseren Gottesdienst am Nachmittag aus. Der Gottesdienst findet in der geraden Kalenderwoche statt.

Podcast Relationship Gera
Sieben Wege - Der Natur Typ / Stefan Schubert / 17.03.19

Podcast Relationship Gera

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2019 28:38


10 Uhr Neben Lobpreis und Predigt feiern wir gemeinsam das Abendmahl. Durch persönliche Beiträge hast du die Möglichkeit den Gottesdienst mitzugestalten. Der Gottesdienst findet in der ungeraden Kalenderwoche statt. 16 Uhr Moderner Lobpreis, eine lebensnahe Predigt und eine gemütliche Lounge zeichnen unseren Gottesdienst am Nachmittag aus. Der Gottesdienst findet in der geraden Kalenderwoche statt.

Podcast Relationship Gera
Sieben Wege - Der Natur Typ / Stefan Schubert / 17.03.19

Podcast Relationship Gera

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2019 28:38


10 Uhr Neben Lobpreis und Predigt feiern wir gemeinsam das Abendmahl. Durch persönliche Beiträge hast du die Möglichkeit den Gottesdienst mitzugestalten. Der Gottesdienst findet in der ungeraden Kalenderwoche statt. 16 Uhr Moderner Lobpreis, eine lebensnahe Predigt und eine gemütliche Lounge zeichnen unseren Gottesdienst am Nachmittag aus. Der Gottesdienst findet in der geraden Kalenderwoche statt.

Efektiivne Altruism Eesti
Urmo Kübaraga targast annetamisest

Efektiivne Altruism Eesti

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2019 82:00


Risto Uuk rääkis selles taskuhäälingu osas Urmo Kübaraga, kes on president Kersti Kaljulaidi vabakonnanõunik. Nad vestlesid targast annetamisest, miks tegeleda heategevusega, rahvusvahelisest vs eestipõhisest annetamisest, emotsionaalsest ja ratsionaalsest heategevusest, teenin-et-annetada karjäärist ja paljust muust. Allikad, mis vestlust toetasid või jutuks tulid: - Kuidas targalt annetada ja annetamisnõuanded: https://edasi.org/34714/tark-annetaja-kuidas-targalt-annetada/ - Heategevuse valimine ratsionaalselt: https://novaator.err.ee/838543/urmo-kubar-pensionifondi-me-ju-ei-vali-tunde-jargi-miks-aga-heategevust - Stefan Schubert annetamise psühholoogiast: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/ea-global-2018-psychology-of-ea/ - Eesti ja rahvusvahelise heategevuse võrdlus kvaliteetse eluaasta arvutamise järgi: https://novaator.err.ee/843095/eksistentsiohud-voivad-olla-pakilisemad-kui-tervishoid-ja-vaesus - Teenin-et-annetada karjäär: https://80000hours.org/articles/earning-to-give/ - Peter Singeri raamat “Most Good You Can Do”: https://www.kriso.ee/most-good-you-can-do-how-db-9780300219869.html - Vikerraadio Heategevuskool: https://heakodanik.ee/uudised/urmo-kubar-teeb-vikerraadios-heategevuskooli/ - Edasi.org rubriik “Tark annetaja”: https://edasi.org/author/urmo-kubar/ - Viimaste aastate Eesti annetamisstatistika: https://heakodanik.ee/uudised/keskmine-annetaja-kulutab-kuus-heategevuseks-tassi-kohvi-maksumuse/

EARadio
EAG 2018 SF: Psychology of effective altruism (Stefan Schubert)

EARadio

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2019 19:51


Charitable giving is popular and substantial, but many donors do not choose to donate to highly effective causes. In this talk, Dr. Stefan Schubert explores some possible reasons why, as well as an overview of recent scientific studies on the subject. He also explores what we can do, as effective altruists, to promote effective giving … Continue reading EAG 2018 SF: Psychology of effective altruism (Stefan Schubert)

80,000 Hours Podcast with Rob Wiblin
#24 - Stefan Schubert on why it’s a bad idea to break the rules, even if it’s for a good cause

80,000 Hours Podcast with Rob Wiblin

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2018 55:01


How honest should we be? How helpful? How friendly? If our society claims to value honesty, for instance, but in reality accepts an awful lot of lying – should we go along with those lax standards? Or, should we attempt to set a new norm for ourselves? Dr Stefan Schubert, a researcher at the Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab at Oxford University, has been modelling this in the context of the effective altruism community. He thinks people trying to improve the world should hold themselves to very high standards of integrity, because their minor sins can impose major costs on the thousands of others who share their goals. Summary, related links and full transcript. In addition, when a norm is uniquely important to our situation, we should be willing to question society and come up with something different and hopefully better. But in other cases, we can be better off sticking with whatever our culture expects, both to save time, avoid making mistakes, and ensure others can predict our behaviour. In this interview Stefan offers a range of views on the projects and culture that make up ‘effective altruism’ - including where it’s going right and where it’s going wrong. Stefan did his PhD in formal epistemology, before moving on to a postdoc in political rationality at the London School of Economics, while working on advocacy projects to improve truthfulness among politicians. At the time the interview was recorded Stefan was a researcher at the Centre for Effective Altruism in Oxford. We discuss: * Should we trust our own judgement more than others’? * How hard is it to improve political discourse? * What should we make of well-respected academics writing articles that seem to be completely misinformed? * How is effective altruism (EA) changing? What might it be doing wrong? * How has Stefan’s view of EA changed? * Should EA get more involved in politics, or steer clear of it? Would it be a bad idea for a talented graduate to get involved in party politics? * How much should we cooperate with those with whom we have disagreements? * What good reasons are there to be inconsiderate? * Should effective altruism potentially focused on a more narrow range of problems? *The 80,000 Hours podcast is produced by Keiran Harris.* **If you subscribe to our podcast, you can listen at leisure on your phone, speed up the conversation if you like, and get notified about future episodes. You can do so by searching ‘80,000 Hours’ wherever you get your podcasts.**

EARadio
EAG 2017 Boston: Moral cooperation (Stefan Schubert)

EARadio

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2017 35:40


Stefan Schubert talks about moral cooperation: how people with diverging moral goals can cooperate to realize those goals.Source: Effective Altruism Global (video).

moral cooperation stefan schubert
Radiokorrespondenterna
Avklätt i kyrkan och forskningsbaserad politik.

Radiokorrespondenterna

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2015 41:01


Baraxlad topp i kyrkan eller shorts i synagogan? I dagens talkshow funderar Louise Epstein på vad sekulära svenskar kanske borde fundera lite extra på när dom är ute och turistar i världen. Sverige är ett av de länder där befolkningen är minst religiös och det kan ställa till problem för förståelsen för andra som är troende. Karin Olofdotter är diplomat och är chef över främjande-enheten på Utrikesdepartementet. Hon ger tips på vad som är viktigt att hålla i huvudet. Stefan Schubert är forskare i filosofi vid London School of Economics. Han tycker politiker ska grunda fler politiska beslut på forskning. Mer kunskap och mindre ideologi helt enkelt. Alice Bah Kuhnke Kultur- och demokratiminister och Barbro Westerholm, riksdagsledamot för Folkpartiet håller inte med honom. Barbro Bolonassos är en prisad bibliotekschef i Fisksätra. Hon har jobbat med läsfrämjande under stora delar av sitt yrkesliv och i programmet ger hon tips om vilka böcker man ska läsa för att förstå Sverige.