Thanks, this was very interesting. Quick question - is there meant to be an answer to this question?

Question: Were there any differences in zebra affinity between Americans and Britons?

Nice to see the assumptions listed out. My worries about the future turning out well by default are part of why I'd like to see more value-spreading EA work, and more work on questioning this assumption (eg looking into Pinker's work, thinking about why the trends might not hold). I'm aware of SI and some negative-utilitarian approaches to this, but I'd love to see links on whatever else is out there.

Ah, no. This was mostly because I think you are doing a better job at explaining my position than I am myself, and also that I am feeling relatively scared of participating in this conversation publicly, partially for reasons that I expect you to be less influenced by.

(I thought maybe Oli thought I knew him or something and that's why he said I was "better placed to continue the discussion.")

Good point, I hadn't considered that. If I were to try to fit this to my model, I would say that there's nobody really looking to produce the best military technology/tactics in between wars. But if you look at a period of sustained effort in staying on the military cutting edge, i.e. the Cold War, you won't see as many of these mistakes and you'll instead find fairly continuous progress with both sides continuously using the best available military technology. I'm not sure if this is actually a good interpretation, but it seems possible. (I'd be interested in where you think we're failing today!)

But even if this is true, your original claim remains true: if it takes a Cold War-level of vigilance to stay on the cutting edge, then terrorists probably aren't deploying the best available weaponry, just because they don't know about it.

So maybe an exceptional effort can keep you on the cutting edge, but terrorist groups aren't at that cutting edge?

We were debating the claim "Hmm, it is not at all clear to me that the accusations that are being discussed here [the Brown accusations] are separate from the accusations that appear to have caused his apology." Julia Wise's comments has confirmed that the claims were separate. The term 'separate' here means 'different instance of sexual harassment'.

The question is about probabilities of guilt/innocence. If you have multiple people accuse you of sexual or non-sexual harassment over the course of at least 7 years in different communities, then you are either extremely unlucky or you have actually harassed people. He also admits guilt

Yes, you can check out this webpage: https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/education

Here's a relevant excerpt:

" Evidence of effect on outcomes (such as income, health, or social outcomes) rather than outputs (such as increased time in school or improved test scores). There are a number of variables that can be used to measure the effects of education interventions, and we place significantly more emphasis on the effects on some variables than others. We distinguish between 'outputs' of education interventions, namely whether they increase time in school or student learning (measured by test scores),3 and the effect of education interventions on people's life 'outcomes', including employment, earnings, health outcomes, fertility, and marriage. We do not place much intrinsic value on increasing time in school or test scores, although we think that such improvements may have instrumental value.4 The majority of experimental studies of the effects of education interventions focus on the effects on time in school and test scores. However, we place far more emphasis on a few recent studies that estimate the effects of education programs on life outcomes, such as earnings and rates of fertility and marriage among young women and girls."

I think you're really grasping at straws here. Is the point to depose Oli, or what? Surely you can't think you're going to get more information about what did or did not happen this way. There are many conceivable ways that the Brown allegations could color CEA's perception of more recent allegation, making the different events not entirely separate.

Just to be clear, I barely know Jacy. I've seen him many times at events, including when he came to Harvard on his book tour, but I don't believe I've ever had a private conversation with him. (Fwiw he never came close to being inappropriate with me or giving me a bad vibe.)