I think that it's important for decision makers within charities to be aware of these problems, not necessarily the campaigners. I talked to some campaign managers when writing this post and it seemed that they were aware about most of these things anyway. But it could be that there are some decision makers in animal orgs for whom it would be useful to read this. Not sure how to make sure that they see it.

Interesting research. I first became aware of this issue from being involved in the animal welfare movement, specifically with small/"pocket" pets where sale of breeding "overstock" for reptile consumption is sadly common. Unfortunately, some people simply enjoy the spectacle of their pet consuming live prey. More generally, it's part of the broader issue of carnivore pets in general -- the meat produced for consumption by dogs and cats is likely to come from factory farms similar to those raising meat for human consumption, where conditions may be little better than those of the mice pictured here. This has led me to a personal decision to refrain from having non-vegetarian pets, and I know that other EAs have done likewise.

Thank you for your comments! You've particularly made us think about the length of camp for the first group. We're now leaning towards something between 5-10 days. Your comment about potential risks is also greatly appreciated, and we will think carefully about how much we will make public moving forward.

Thank you so much for your comment! I really appreciate that you've taken the time to be so thorough. I also appreciate how structured your comment is, and it makes it easy to follow. You bring up a lot of new points that we haven't thought about before, and have made us think more about how we can better cooperate with MBA/ business graduates and HR managers. I also found your list of certificates particularly useful. I was wondering, could you explain more about what you call 'partnership streams'?

A few days ago we published another post on this topic where we outline our plans for an operations camp this summer as a project to help reduce the operations talent gap in EA. It would be great if you get the chance to read over it and see if you have any input.

Minding Our Way by Nate Soares comes close, although I don't think he addresses the "what if there actually exist moral obligations?" question, instead assuming mostly non-moral-realism)

Not sure what he says (haven't got the interest to search through a whole series of posts for the relevant ones, sorry) but my point assuming antirealism (or subjectivism) seems to have been generally neglected by philosophy both inside and outside the academia: just because the impartial good isn't everything doesn't mean that it is rational to generically promote other people's pursuits of their own respective partial goods. The whole reason humans created impartial morality in the first place is that we realized that it works better than for us to each pursue partialist goals.

So, regardless of most moral points of view, the shared standards and norms around how-much-to-sacrifice must be justified on consequentialist grounds.

I should emphasize that antirealism != agent-relative morality, I just happen to think that there is a correlation in plausibility here.

But, even in that case, it seems often the case that being emotionally healthy requires, among other things, you not to treat your emotional health as a necessary evil than you indulge.

Whether it typically requires it to the degree advocated by OP or Zvi is (a) probably false, on my basic perception, but (b) requires proper psychological research before drawing firm conclusions.

But for most people, there doesn't seem to be a viable approach to integrating the obvious-implications-of-EA-thinking and the obvious-implications-of-living-healthily.

This is a crux, because IMO the way that the people who frequently write and comment on this topic seem to talk about altruism represents a much more neurotic response to minor moral problems than what I consider to be typical or desirable for a human being. Of course the people who feel anxiety about morality will be the ones who talk about how to handle anxiety about morality, but that doesn't mean their points are valid recommendations for the more general population. Deciding not to have a mocha doesn't necessarily mean stressing out about it, and we shouldn't set norms and expectations that lead people to perceive it as such. It creates an availability cascade of other people parroting conventional wisdom about too-much-sacrifice when they haven't personally experienced confirmation of that point of view.

If I think I shouldn't have the mocha, I just... don't get the mocha. Sometimes I do get the mocha, but then I don't feel anxiety about it, I know I just acted compulsively or whatever and I then think "oh gee I screwed up" and get on with my life.

The problem can be alleviated by having shared standards and doctrine for budgeting and other decisions. GWWC with its 10% pledge, or Singer's "about a third" principle, is a first step in this direction.

OK, this is what I modeled AI alignment folks as believing. But doesn't the idea of first-past-the-post-is-the-winner rely on a "hard takeoff" scenario? This is a view I associate with Eliezer. But Paul in the podcast says that he thinks a gradual takeoff is more likely, and envisions a smooth gradient of AI capability such that human-level AI comes into existence in a world where slightly stupider AIs already exist.

The relevant passage:

and in particular, when someone develops human level AI, it’s not going to emerge in a world like the world of today where we can say that indeed, having human level AI today would give you a decisive strategic advantage. Instead, it will emerge in a world which is already much, much crazier than the world of today, where having a human AI gives you some more modest advantage.

So I get why you would drop everything and race to be the first to build an aligned AGI if you're Eliezer. But if you're Paul, I'm not sure why you would do this, since you think it will only give you a modest advantage.

(Also, if the idea is to build your AGI first and then use it to stop everyone else from building their AGIs -- I feel like that second part of the plan should be fronted a bit more! "I'm doing research to ensure AI does what we tell it to" is quite a different proposition from "I'm doing research to ensure AI does what we tell it to, so that I can build an AI and tell it to conquer the world for me.")

Thank you, Aaron! I think your observation that animal product consumption differs systematically between restaurants, grocery stores and other venues is likely accurate. This study mitigated the problem by selecting for campuses where most of the food purchased can be tracked via the dining services, thus providing a more complete picture of individual diets. Of course, these diets may not be representative of the general population but at least a more complete picture of individual diet reduces selection biases between food venues. That said, we didn't find many campuses that met those selection criteria, so future field research will likely need to consider the limitation of sampling only a possibly biased portion of diet.

Few comments

• It seems to me there is some inherent tension between the goals "helping the camp participants" and "helping the organizations". The later puts more pressure on selection, which may not be that good for learning.
• In case of the group nr.1, willingness to spend 4-6 weeks on such event is likely a credible signal of dedication to EA, but plausibly may be even slightly anti-correlated with ops talent (I would expect to find some of the best people organising something, and having higher opportunity costs).
• In case of the group nr.2 and 4 days event the whole setup seems more balanced and fair when considering interests of the participants. Many EA orgs are somewhat special and the job market is less one-sided in the senior roles side.
• General comment regarding all efforts related to talent: in the whole EA talent ecosystem people should think carefully about creating strange incentive landscapes and possibly moral hazards. I recommend spending a lot of thoughts on that, not necessarily in a public way.

Edited my reply to reflect the correct organization, thanks!