Paul Bloom on Big Numbers

Baby Coati! Video.

I've talked a great deal about how citing big numbers hurts animals. 

Here, psychologist Paul Bloom goes into more detail as to why.

Just a reminder

"Make them riot"
-TFG

30 seconds of TFG's Insurrection January 6, 2021. 

(Follow-up to this)

Sunday Funny Not Funny

Click for larger

Born in 1960s

Hard to overstate how important this is.

From Losing:

I’ll also skip the shitty slave-labor jobs that fueled my horrible relationship with money...

…except the one when I was fifteen (so young that I could be paid less than minimum wage) in an unventilated factory where the paint and solvent fumes were terrible. Add that to growing up during Peak Lead – leaded gasoline, leaded paint – and it’s amazing I can even tie my shoes. 

One of the easiest ways to make a big difference (for humans)

Preface: Hillary ran on lead abatement in 2016. The "Green" party chose to de facto support Tangerine Palpatine instead.

From Matt Yglesias:

My top recommendation this week is Rachel Bonnifield’s writeup of the new Partnership for a Lead-Free Future (PLF), a joint initiative of USAID, Open Philanthropy, the Gates Foundation and others to eliminate childhood lead poisoning globally.

Rachel was my guest on The Weeds back in April of 2021 after I read a report she co-wrote about this problem. Our hook at the time was that the Biden administration had responded to the tragedy in Flint, Michigan with a big push for domestic lead eradication in the United States. But as she and her colleagues at the Center for Global Development, along with the small NGO Pure Earth, had documented worse-than-Flint conditions impacting hundreds of millions of kids routinely in poor and middle-income countries.

What’s more, while the Flint situation was horrible, it did have a pretty straightforward fix and was addressed with relative speed. But the problem facing many poor countries is even tougher to address and has languished for years — residents, including children, suffer severe lead contamination due to the use of bad cookware, adulterated spices, an unsafe form of eye makeup, unsound forms of battery recycling, and other industrial processes.

Lead exposure is thought to cause about a million deaths per year, though some estimates say the number is closer to five million. But the true toll is higher than the direct deaths because childhood lead exposure reduces IQ and higher cognitive functions. Reducing lead poisoning could generate massive improvements in the basic stability and economic climate of poor countries, or let more kids grow up to be genius-level innovators whose ideas improve the lives of billions more. Note that for all the hoopla — the launch event featured Jill Biden, Samantha Power, and multiple heads of government — we’re talking about a modest $150 million fund. Even the total budget they’re ultimately looking for here is just $350 million. I really think this is a problem on the scale of “if lots of people tweet that it would be good to contribute to this cause, such that it becomes a low-effort way for a rich guy to make people say nice things about him, we could get that money and improve the world by a staggeringly large amount.” The flip side of being a neglected issue is that it’s much less politically contentious than most other serious problems, and anyone from George Soros to Elon Musk could plausibly throw money at it.

Sometimes when we fight, they still win

A-ha: Take On Me

Has 2 billion views; it is a cool video

"Back off, Vance, this couch is mine."

Got yet another mailer saying, "When we fight, we win!"

I understand saying this in an attempt to fire people up. But I assume it goes without saying it is pretty insulting. It isn't like Hillary and team just forgot to fight. 

More: The candidates who need your money the most including a Guidebook to posting constructively

Song / Quote I should have used in Losing

"People say friends don't destroy one another
"What do they know about friends?"
In John Green's Paper Towns. DFTBA.

Game Shows Touch Our Lives by The Moutain Goats 

Finance Friday

One of the most useful (IMHO) lines in Losing is that when it comes to money, no one is on your side. Not your financial advisor, not your banker, not your realtor (buyer or seller), etc.

Follow the incentives. Everyone wants as much of your money for as little effort as possible.

Also: 

 What If You Only Invested At Market Peaks?

Interesting, no?

Please Share Suffering Survey

New song from Tears for Fears! The Girl that I Call Home

 

The Organization to Prevent Intense Suffering (OPIS) has released a global survey to better understand suffering. The survey is here. (I hope you aren't in a position to be able to answer.) 

More info:

The survey is part of a project to provide a more comprehensive overview of human and non-human suffering on our planet. While pain and suffering are often evaluated numerically in clinical settings, we think this initiative is novel in the attempt to collect data across many different conditions, with a specific focus on the phenomenon of suffering. We plan to submit our findings to a scientific publication in addition to communicating them as part of the larger overview.

We would appreciate your help in filling out the survey if you are currently suffering significantly, or have in the past, from any condition or life situation. We would also appreciate your sharing it with any friends, family, acquaintances or colleagues who are suffering from a particular condition and may also be interested in contributing to this research project.

The face of intense suffering. 😎

Two Graphs Worth a Glance

If you find these posts useful, please share them. TY!

Energy = The way out of poverty.
From Todd Moss' Eat More Electrons.
Related: We can get more energy from existing nuclear plants.

Some context: right now, ur planet is historically cold.
Not "Destroying the Earth." Not "Burning."
From Malthusians and Misanthropes by Jack Devanney.

Friday the 13th Good News: Swords into Plowshares

 

The US is dismantling nuclear warheads to power the next generation of reactors

Bonus, an amazingly beautiful song: Ventura Highway by America

"Morality" is a myth and "reason" is irrelevant

I've listened to a number of episodes of the podcast "Lives Well Lived" by Peter Singer & Kasia de Lazari Radek.

In their podcast, Kasia and Peter argue that "reason" can lead people to live more "moral" lives.

I think their podcast itself disproves each aspect of that argument.

Kasia and Peter have had seventeen episodes with people chosen to show a well-lived life. But the majority of the interviews I have heard have been with very smart people who understand the horrors of factory farms and still are not vegetarians; e.g., psychologist Paul Bloom, economist Tyler Cowen, and most absurd (in his rationalizations) Neil deGrasse Tyson (And Jonathan Haidt, with whom I had a personal connection as discussed in Losing. And probably Danny Kahneman.)

(This is not a "People are hypocrites!" or a "Why can't people be as smart as me?!" post.)

Longtime readers know that, over time, I've realized we are each just a bag of chemical reactions. These bags exist to get a certain combination of atoms - genes - into the next generation.

All of our feelings and thoughts come from bodies and brains that evolved over unfathomable eons of time. And these bodies and brains evolved for a singular purpose - to get genes to the next generation.

Not to be rational. Not to be moral. Not to be "good."

Just to reproduce.

How humans think and feel evolved to keep us alive, gather resources, be liked, and get our genes to the next generation.

Our feelings come first.

We then employ our thoughts to "justify" our feelings.

We are not rational animals; we are rationalizing animals.

For many reasons, we are confused and deluded about this. 

One illusion comes from our sense of "moral outrage." But these feelings are simply the product of evolution. Not only do we "love" our family (they share our genes!) and our mates (obv), but we also do better (have more babies) when we work together. So we are angry at and demand "justice" for those who lie or cheat or steal or otherwise attempt to freeload on cooperation.

But this isn't "morality" in any real sense. It is all just chemical reactions to driven by the most successful chemicals on earth.

The counter is: If reason and morality don't exist, how has there been "moral progress"? Why have we "expanded the circle"?

Because it benefits us.

Just as bands of hunter-gatherers did better when they worked together (and policed offenders), bigger and bigger groups did better and better via trade and division of labor. We then came up with rationalizations for why we are no longer at war with Eastasia, and developed treaties and laws to get a "fair" deal. However, respecting and working with more people all comes down to how it benefits us.

For example: If everyone with power had had a decline in living standards because of an end to slavery, slavery wouldn't have ended. However, the North developed a non-slave-centric economy, so they could then "morally" oppose slavery.

And, as I've noted, there are still about as many human beings living in slavery today in our "morally evolved" world.

(Whenever we try something not based in self-interest / incentives (e.g., "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need") it ends up a bloody, regressive failure.)

And even as we have evolved to be an interconnected global market with rules and institutions to mutually benefit most (wrongly interpreted as a morally advanced society), we still regularly descend into savage and brutal tribalism.

Are there people who "do good"? There are people who are celebrated for being "good" and "moral," whose actions are outside the current norms of society. Our brains are big and complicated and can be programmed to do many things.

But it is all just programming. There is no "choice" to be good.

Even if there are people who "do good," that doesn't mean morality exists or that reason matters. "Moral" people following "reason" do crazy and even criminal stuff.

No judgment! They are just following their programming!

(We should also ask: Are the people we admire actually making the world a better place in terms of overall suffering? It is rarely clear, especially when you consider all sentient beings.)

Just like those who go off the "ethical" deep end or those who create terrible unintended consequences (like me for decades, as documented in Losing), I think it is actively harmful to operate under the delusion that reason matters.

It is harmful because this delusion leads to wasted effort and more suffering than there needs to be. If we honestly face facts and deal with people as they actually are, we could reduce suffering more efficiently.

(This isn't a contradiction. It is entirely possible to realize that we are just bags of chemical reactions and to still want less suffering. Suffering actually exists.)

Italy

There is a truism Anne always reminds me of: "No one gives a $#!t about your vacation." (This isn't true of me - I often love hearing about where others have been. Hearing trip reports from others is why we spent a week in the Berner-Oberland, the highlight of our travels in the past few years and one of the top highlights of my life.) 

But I've heard from several subscribers and One Step donors that they like our travel pictures. So below are some from Italy. 

(BTW, today is the third anniversary of my first day off of oh-pee-oyds after my accident on January 21, 2021. I'm still on pregabalin. Personally, I'm exceedingly grateful for very strong pain meds.)

Florence, which I did not like - crazy crowded in mid-May.

For the 666 Picante Spicy Olive Oil. LOL!

Siena

Corniglia in Cinque Terre

So so so glad we didn't spend more than a few hours in Pisa - the very definition of over-touristed (and the pushiest "sellers" I've ever encountered).

Milan train station

Vernazza in Cinque Terre (yes, these are out of order)

Weekend Reading: Thank God for the Atom Bomb

The Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima.

I defend dropping at least the first atomic bomb in Losing. (Noting, among other things, that the two nuclear bombings were less deadly and destructive than when the US firebombed Tokyo: "The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II,[22] greater than Dresden,[23] Hamburg, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events." More.) 

Here is a longer discussion of the atomic bombs' use from The New Republic in 1981.

Sometimes the least bad option is fucking horrific. Kinda the definition of war.

Choose Truth and Hope over Dogma and Doom

"when you hold the definition of poverty constant, the rate fell from about 22% before the Great Society to about 2-3% today ... Giving poor people food and medical care really does make them less poor — as does giving them housing vouchers and cash subsidies like the EITC. The welfare state does what we created it to do."

Noah Smith: Progressives need to learn to take the W

Outrage is only one motivation for change, and it comes with a cost. 

excerpts:

[I]f we want to measure the impact of welfare programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and the EITC, we can’t just update our standards in order to cancel out the effect of these programs, and then conclude that America hasn’t done anything to reduce poverty!  ...

My hypothesis is that some progressives don’t want to acknowledge the success of the War on Poverty — and of subsequent welfare programs like the EITC and Child Tax Credit — because they’re afraid that acknowledging past successes might reduce outrage, and thus reduce momentum for further reform. ...

[M]any progressives seem not to know how to acknowledge their own victories. They’re so dependent on outrage as their motivating force that they recoil against any positivity that might sap that wellspring of anger.

This ends up hurting progressive causes, for a number of reasons. Most obviously, it leads progressives to incorrect conclusions about which tools are effective for achieving their goals. If you insist on telling yourself — and the world — that poverty in America hasn’t fallen, you’ll discount the power of the welfare state. That will also play into conservative hands, since the idea that welfare programs are ineffective is central to the arguments against them.

Another reason progressives shouldn’t rely exclusively on outrage is that it’s probably a lot more powerful in the short term than in the long term. Organizational behavior researchers and management experts will generally tell you that flagellating your employees can motivate them to greater efforts for a while, but will eventually lead to burnout and cognitive exhaustion. Theories of long-term motivation, like the broaden-and-build theory and self-determination theory, emphasize harnessing positive emotions of hopefulness and growth.

...activists are finding themselves unable to sustain their energy. Protests against abortion bans have been fairly anemic. And it’s not hard to see why — rates of depression among young progressives have soared. There’s a fair amount of research suggesting that political negativity is being “internalized”

After decades of progress against poverty, racism, and sexism, the progressive culture of the 2010s told young Americans that everything in their country was horrible and that they needed to revolt against it. ...

Again, this is not to say that outrage is never appropriate, or that it’s never effective. Sometimes it is. But it’s suboptimal to have it be the one and only motivating force behind all pressure for social change. You need positive motivations too — hope, including rational hope based on past successes, is important.