Zach Freitas-Groff

NOTE: I would like to clarify that the post below and the published paper show that a result from 1995 does not hold, but they do NOT make the case for the 1995 model being correct. There are many reasons the models in both papers are likely to be deeply flawed: path dependency, dynamic ecosystems, philosophical problems with the definition of suffering and enjoyment, and so on. The primary point here is to treat the 1995 result and other work on wild animal suffering with caution. In 1995, Yew-Kwang Ng wrote a groundbreaking paper, "Towards welfare biology: Evolutionary economics of animal consciousness and suffering"  that explored the novel question of the wellbeing of wild animals as distinct from the conservation of species. As perceptive as it was innovative, the paper proposed a number of axioms about evolution and consciousness to study which animals are sentient, what their experiences are, and what might be done about it. Among the many results in the paper wa

It's common knowledge in urban areas that the availability of vegan options has soared in the U.S. and around the world in recent years, and it's nearly equally common to think that veganism has become more common as well, but the data on this raises questions. Gallup has been estimating the number of vegans and vegetarians for years and has repeatedly found no change . At the same time, the number of vegan options is clearly increasing in supermarkets and restaurants.  It's far from clear that Gallup is right, because other, sketchier statistics have some hint of the numbers of vegans increasing. I can't find the original data, but  GlobalData  apparently found a 600% increase in the number of people identifying as vegan, and there's a bunch of figures like this bouncing around online. This seems likely to be driven by the fact that in surveys, more people identify as vegan and vegetarian than actually are based on self-reported food choices, but Gallup’s trend

Chiming once again in as the Oscars are announced with my picks for this year, which aren't always those that are nominated. My favorite movie of the year was A Star Is Born . I left that movie in awe: the way the camera moves during the concerts makes it feel like we are on stage, and Lady Gaga, the quintessential modern pop star, comes across as a totally normal person. The story and acting had my bawling as I left the theater. After that, I think the next-best movie of the year was Hereditary , which as a horror movie didn't stand a chance of being nominated. It's the scariest movie I've ever seen in theaters, easily, and probably the scariest I've ever seen. It draws with real-life issues as well in a way that makes it all the more unsettling. I think after that Black Panther takes the cake for me. It's a superhero movie made into an afro-futuristic epic, and despite all its popularity, it's not a bit oversold. It draws on all sorts of pop-cultur

Rob Wiblin interviewed economist Tyler Cowen on the 80,000 hours podcast (“the show about the world’s most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them”) and as I would expect, it was a consistently stimulating conversation. Cowen presented on his new book, Stubborn Attachments , which argues that we should place dramatic importance on economic growth because most of humanity’s expected value lies in the future, and economic growth is the most reliable help we can offer future generations. I think the thesis is largely correct, and I'm glad he's making such a strong case for creating an economically prosperous future. I want to contend, though, that growth as conventionally measured does not always do justice to the sort of growth that matters for the long-term future. Cowen makes a good case for providing future generations with as many resources as possible, but economic growth is a systematically imperfect measure of resources. In particular, it's n

Source: https://peoplespostng.com/news/when-churches-become-fetish-ritual-dens/ I asked a number of people at effective altruism global in June a question that came to my mind: how would a recession affect charities aligned with effective altruism? A lot of people seemed to me to have concerns, and many people I talked to seemed to think their organizations did not have a plan for if a recession hits and donations decrease. I think that’s a problem worth some thought. The effective altruism movement has now been booming for several years, with many EA-aligned animal organizations multiplying in size and achieving a cascade of long-sought cage-free pledges. EA-oriented meta organizations and those working on the long-term future of humanity have gained significantly more esteem. Evidence-based global development organizations have continued to be dominant in that sphere, even though they are increasingly less connected to self-described EA organizations. There is unmistakable

Source: http://cognitive-edge.com/blog/on-evidence/ The past year I was a senior research analyst at Northwestern University's Global Poverty Research Lab on a study of evidence-based policy. Specifically, our goal was to work on a question often on researchers' minds: how can I get my ideas acted upon? To do this, I dug through a number of bodies of evidence on how science influences policy. One area I looked at is what is called "implementation science" in medicine, which looks at how to get doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators to adopt evidence-based practice. Another was a series of papers by social scientist Carol Weiss and her students on how policymakers in government agencies claim to use evidence. There is also a small literature on how to implement evidence-based policy in public schools, and a little work on policymaker numeracy. I've included a bibliography below that should be helpful for anyone interested in this topic. Most of my yea

A few months ago, I posted on my Facebook wall that I was considering running a marathon and asked for advice. I'd started training low-key in October for no particular reason. I've been a runner since I was eleven or twelve, and one day after going for a slightly longer run than normal, my fiancé Lucas and I talked about how cool it would be if I ran a marathon, so I decided I'd give it a try. Then one day, again for no particular reason, I researched the health effects of running a marathon. I expected to find that it was positive, at least mildly. Instead what I found were articles upon articles  pooh-poohing marathons as unhealthy wastes of time. Now as much as I appreciate science writers for spreading important findings, I also know they frequently get things wrong. So I searched Google Scholar, and I found roughly the same thing.  I'd decided to do the marathon for no particular reason except that it would be an achievable accomplishment with presumably on