I failed the exercise because I don't think, "Devote all DoI resources to drilling a big hole in the ground, and just keep drilling for as far as we can go," is related to insect welfare.
"personally, I think the most important thing on Earth is the girl reading this ❤️"
Come on, Glenn, what's the likelihood that *any* woman is reading your blog? lol get rekt XD
On a more sincere note, I do agree with the thesis (ie it's desirable to revise and alter existing institutions in order to achieve better moral outcomes), but I'm not sure that I agree with your definition of woke; maybe it's the definition that BB used in his (paywalled, and thus emblematic of a failed Substacker ;D) piece, but I think wokeness earns scrutiny for being far more than simply being aware of / concerned with injustice. More than "SJW" I've heard the terms "identity politics" and "political correctness", hahaha.
Part of the reason I wouldn't call the entire EA movement woke would be because to me, wokeness is differentiated by appeals to rather unfalsifiable metrics. Patriarchy, glass ceiling, microaggressions, etc--they all rely on nebulous mythology, rather than concrete concerns.
Yes, that's the way Bentham uses the word. I agree that's not how it's conventionally used, but I'd like to reclaim it (or just claim it). At any rate, declaring myself woke rather than universalist or revisionist (which would be more accurate) is more provocative and gets more people to read the article.
But I should concede that patriarchy is indeed vague. And while that doesn't make it unfalsifiable or un-empirical, it does mean that different people probably have different definitions on when a society crosses over into being patriarchal. However, the other two are more straight-forward to measure using quantitative metrics. So yes, microaggressions ( https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/17456916211019944 ), but especially the glass ceiling ( https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.06813 ) are pointing to concrete concerns. With the glass ceiling you don't even really need a fancy statistical analysis to notice it; there have been 45 presidents of the US, and none of them have been a woman despite it not being forbidden. That's a (pardon the pun) crystal clear example of a glass ceiling.
To be candid, I do think that metrics like the gender inequality index or literacy rates across the sexes can be employed to measure how patriarchal a society is. In the context of wokeness, though, I don't think such analyses are done before commentary. It tends to be more of a vague unease ("this dude was rude to me, this reflects society").
Where I think I would disagree with you is with glass ceilings and microaggressions, since both assume intent; the former assumes discrimination (implicit and invisible) being the driver behind disparity, while the latter assumes prejudice to drive social interactions, and I'm not sure that these assumptions are provable ... well, short of mind-reading someone, haha.
I do stand corrected--I should've chosen a better way of phrasing my stance on the topic! :D
> In the context of wokeness, though, I don't think such analyses are done before commentary
There are many contexts of wokeness, for many the analysis is not done before, but for many others it is (e.g. both the left and the right agree that academia is "woke" and there such analyses *are* being done before commentary).
> Where I think I would disagree with you is with glass ceilings and microaggressions, since both assume intent; the former assumes discrimination (implicit and invisible) being the driver behind disparity, while the latter assumes prejudice to drive social interactions, and I'm not sure that these assumptions are provable
If they do need intent then they're indeed unprovable, but I don't think they do. For example, a lot of the research into glass ceilings study network effects and implicit bias, neither of which require conscious intent.
There may be people that talk about micro aggressions as if they need intent, but at least how I have heard it used, and how academia studies it, it doesn't require intent (e.g. studying cortisol levels).
When you speak of moral progress in institutions, who is the morality for? If not for God, then it must be for humans, because it's very hard to imagine the universe caring for shrimp.
The universe as we know it is a vast collection of things that spin. Hot stars, cold balls of ice and rock and gas. If our nine planets were to talk, what would they have to say on the topic of shrimp? What would the rocks and the cliffs and the seas impose on us, knowing that they have been around long enough to see our entire race born and die?
God, as a human voice, might have a few words. Gods might as well, if you are a polytheist. But nature absent spirits is both silent and alien.
An important step in your argument which does not seem to make sense, is your assumption that just because most institutions don’t care about the majority of moral value. They must be below replacement level. Sure most institutions don’t care in the slightest about insect suffering, but then most institutions in the history of human society haven’t cared about insect suffering, so this is not evidence of our institutions being worse than usual for human institutions. At the end of the day, when we talk of random changes, we don’t mean a completely random change from the set of all possible changes. We mean a change from the set of changes that are realistically likely to be enacted and expect regression to the mean. In fact, our set of institutions is extremely unusual in permitting things like the Effective Altruism movement or concerns about wild animals, suffering combined with cost benefit analysis, most historical societies don’t have such discussions and when they do, they generally don’t manage to move huge sums of money in philanthropy. I admit that our society causes way more animal suffering through factory farming and global warming, but given our current technological and economic capabilities. That’s not likely to go away anytime soon, so unless you think our society is unusually insensitive to moral philosophy, and this could be changed through changes in institutions, you should not assume that our society is below replacement level in terms of institutions. And of course, if you actually think improvements in human well-being through economic growth is a net positive, our society is possibly the best human society ever or at least way above replacement level.
Considering I'm only saying we ought to bite bullets, not make random changes to institutions (although if we *could* make random changes it would be a good thing), I don't see how this is any different from what I'm saying.
I may be misreading you. My own reading of your article was that at least in the way you are using the terms, you are a radical, if you think random changes to our institutions would be good. Bullet biting is what makes you awake to injustice. It doesn’t make you a radical by itself, at least if you’re using the term how it’s normally used. If you think the subject of whether random changes to institutions would be good isn’t important or interesting because we can’t in fact make these changes, then I think the conservative radical debate would by definition also be irrelevant and uninteresting.
I think bullet biting leads to radicalism because (given certain assumptions, like "suffering is intrinsically bad and we should address it when we can do so cheaply") it causes you to accept conclusions that imply we should radically change our institutions.
I agree, every liberal should bite the bullet on this one. Please keep biting the bullet. You're top issue for selecting a democratic nominee in 2028 should be this.
"personally, I think the most important thing on Earth is the girl reading this ❤️"
extremely axiologically implausible imo
I failed the exercise because I don't think, "Devote all DoI resources to drilling a big hole in the ground, and just keep drilling for as far as we can go," is related to insect welfare.
"personally, I think the most important thing on Earth is the girl reading this ❤️"
Come on, Glenn, what's the likelihood that *any* woman is reading your blog? lol get rekt XD
On a more sincere note, I do agree with the thesis (ie it's desirable to revise and alter existing institutions in order to achieve better moral outcomes), but I'm not sure that I agree with your definition of woke; maybe it's the definition that BB used in his (paywalled, and thus emblematic of a failed Substacker ;D) piece, but I think wokeness earns scrutiny for being far more than simply being aware of / concerned with injustice. More than "SJW" I've heard the terms "identity politics" and "political correctness", hahaha.
Part of the reason I wouldn't call the entire EA movement woke would be because to me, wokeness is differentiated by appeals to rather unfalsifiable metrics. Patriarchy, glass ceiling, microaggressions, etc--they all rely on nebulous mythology, rather than concrete concerns.
But again, I could be wrong!
Yes, that's the way Bentham uses the word. I agree that's not how it's conventionally used, but I'd like to reclaim it (or just claim it). At any rate, declaring myself woke rather than universalist or revisionist (which would be more accurate) is more provocative and gets more people to read the article.
> rather unfalsifiable metrics. Patriarchy, glass ceiling, microaggressions, etc--they all rely on nebulous mythology, rather than concrete concerns.
I don't think they're unfalsifiable. For example, anthropologists are researching when patriarchies started, which means non-patriarchal societies existed and could be reinstated, at which point positing its existence would be falsified (see this discussion: https://theconversation.com/how-did-the-patriarchy-start-and-will-evolution-get-rid-of-it-189648 ). One objection one could raise is that no one has provided metrics on what to measure, but for that I would refer you to this paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038589023002004
But I should concede that patriarchy is indeed vague. And while that doesn't make it unfalsifiable or un-empirical, it does mean that different people probably have different definitions on when a society crosses over into being patriarchal. However, the other two are more straight-forward to measure using quantitative metrics. So yes, microaggressions ( https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/17456916211019944 ), but especially the glass ceiling ( https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.06813 ) are pointing to concrete concerns. With the glass ceiling you don't even really need a fancy statistical analysis to notice it; there have been 45 presidents of the US, and none of them have been a woman despite it not being forbidden. That's a (pardon the pun) crystal clear example of a glass ceiling.
Appreciate the elaborate comment!
To be candid, I do think that metrics like the gender inequality index or literacy rates across the sexes can be employed to measure how patriarchal a society is. In the context of wokeness, though, I don't think such analyses are done before commentary. It tends to be more of a vague unease ("this dude was rude to me, this reflects society").
Where I think I would disagree with you is with glass ceilings and microaggressions, since both assume intent; the former assumes discrimination (implicit and invisible) being the driver behind disparity, while the latter assumes prejudice to drive social interactions, and I'm not sure that these assumptions are provable ... well, short of mind-reading someone, haha.
I do stand corrected--I should've chosen a better way of phrasing my stance on the topic! :D
> In the context of wokeness, though, I don't think such analyses are done before commentary
There are many contexts of wokeness, for many the analysis is not done before, but for many others it is (e.g. both the left and the right agree that academia is "woke" and there such analyses *are* being done before commentary).
> Where I think I would disagree with you is with glass ceilings and microaggressions, since both assume intent; the former assumes discrimination (implicit and invisible) being the driver behind disparity, while the latter assumes prejudice to drive social interactions, and I'm not sure that these assumptions are provable
If they do need intent then they're indeed unprovable, but I don't think they do. For example, a lot of the research into glass ceilings study network effects and implicit bias, neither of which require conscious intent.
There may be people that talk about micro aggressions as if they need intent, but at least how I have heard it used, and how academia studies it, it doesn't require intent (e.g. studying cortisol levels).
“As long as one man goes hungry, no one should eat until everyone is full”
Xavier Renegade Angel
"We should cure cancer by hammering nails into people's heads"
"Isn't that a bad idea?"
"WHAT! WHY ARE YOU AGAINST CURING CANCER!"
When you speak of moral progress in institutions, who is the morality for? If not for God, then it must be for humans, because it's very hard to imagine the universe caring for shrimp.
Why? I don’t find it hard to imagine at all.
The universe as we know it is a vast collection of things that spin. Hot stars, cold balls of ice and rock and gas. If our nine planets were to talk, what would they have to say on the topic of shrimp? What would the rocks and the cliffs and the seas impose on us, knowing that they have been around long enough to see our entire race born and die?
God, as a human voice, might have a few words. Gods might as well, if you are a polytheist. But nature absent spirits is both silent and alien.
Oh so you just like don’t understand the concept of metaphor.
I don't understand the metaphor, then.
It refers to an objective impartial viewpoint from which to address moral issues. So I don’t see why that would have to be shrimp-exclusive.
An important step in your argument which does not seem to make sense, is your assumption that just because most institutions don’t care about the majority of moral value. They must be below replacement level. Sure most institutions don’t care in the slightest about insect suffering, but then most institutions in the history of human society haven’t cared about insect suffering, so this is not evidence of our institutions being worse than usual for human institutions. At the end of the day, when we talk of random changes, we don’t mean a completely random change from the set of all possible changes. We mean a change from the set of changes that are realistically likely to be enacted and expect regression to the mean. In fact, our set of institutions is extremely unusual in permitting things like the Effective Altruism movement or concerns about wild animals, suffering combined with cost benefit analysis, most historical societies don’t have such discussions and when they do, they generally don’t manage to move huge sums of money in philanthropy. I admit that our society causes way more animal suffering through factory farming and global warming, but given our current technological and economic capabilities. That’s not likely to go away anytime soon, so unless you think our society is unusually insensitive to moral philosophy, and this could be changed through changes in institutions, you should not assume that our society is below replacement level in terms of institutions. And of course, if you actually think improvements in human well-being through economic growth is a net positive, our society is possibly the best human society ever or at least way above replacement level.
Considering I'm only saying we ought to bite bullets, not make random changes to institutions (although if we *could* make random changes it would be a good thing), I don't see how this is any different from what I'm saying.
I may be misreading you. My own reading of your article was that at least in the way you are using the terms, you are a radical, if you think random changes to our institutions would be good. Bullet biting is what makes you awake to injustice. It doesn’t make you a radical by itself, at least if you’re using the term how it’s normally used. If you think the subject of whether random changes to institutions would be good isn’t important or interesting because we can’t in fact make these changes, then I think the conservative radical debate would by definition also be irrelevant and uninteresting.
I think bullet biting leads to radicalism because (given certain assumptions, like "suffering is intrinsically bad and we should address it when we can do so cheaply") it causes you to accept conclusions that imply we should radically change our institutions.
I agree, every liberal should bite the bullet on this one. Please keep biting the bullet. You're top issue for selecting a democratic nominee in 2028 should be this.
BB de facto ruler, sending all meat sellers to El Salvador without process.
I’m not a utilitarian, I just think hedonic value is one of many things that’s important