Where is that image from? Is there a colour version? I might share it if there were.

I've recently been reading Thresholder book 4 by Alexander Wales which exists in a functional socialist world. I think it's easier to empathise with this case when I'm reading about a place where everyone gets enough food, clothes, furniture and housing. 

Some thoughts on this:

1. The global economy’s current mode of allocating resources is suboptimal. (Otherwise, why would effective altruism be necessary?)

I am not sure most EAs think this. I think they think that we are bad at allocating resources to poorer people/animals. Charity is flawed because the people paying and the people and beings benefitting are different. Which ruins the incentives. In some sense foundations are already a more command means of allocating money. But it doesn't follow that the whole economy should be.

And some socialist economies have had some successes (human development in Kerala, economic growth in China, the USSR’s role in space technology and smallpox eradication, Cuba’s healthcare system)

This is the article I want to read, FYI. If I were more confident on these points, then I would be more in agreement overall. If you want, I'd happily have a google doc on these points and attempt to make a blog later, but I really don't know much about it. But I'd like to learn more!

In addition, socialist influence or pressure has played a vital part in reforms within capitalism – such as the expansion of public services, redistribution and decolonisation – which have almost certainly been positive for welfare.

This is disputed. Some claim that these things would have happened as people got wealthier. Personally I don't know. 

Firstly, EAs should be more willing to fund and conduct research into alternative economic systems, socialist ones included.

Yes in theory, but how can this be done without grift/vaccuousness. I like the charter city institute trying to set up charter cities. I'd prefer a commune trying to scale itself rather than research I wouldn't trust when it was done.

For instance, there is much recent socialist literature on climate change[8], on movement-building and strategy[9], and on the economics of the future[10]. Engagement with socialist thought, especially socialist critiques of capitalism, might have woken EAs up to the dangers associated with dependence upon billionaires and the current competitive race to AI at an earlier date.

Yes I have some time for this, though it seems like the first people I'd expect to do this kind of translation work are socialist EAs of which there are a few. I sort of don't get why they aren't most passionate about translating their learnings into EA language. I mean, I do that with forecasting and some ex-christian learnings. 

Thirdly, EAs who want to have impact through politics should regard socialists as natural allies.

This is not my experience of socialists. I agree with them on a number of things, but often I get the sense that I am not nearly good enough. I know people who won't come to my house because my housemate (not an EA) is a Tory. Generally they come across to me as people who want perfection before they'll deal with me and I doubt I'll make the vibe check.

But partly it is due to effective altruism’s proximity to capitalists.

I mean, yes and as above I think that some skepticism about billionaires is wise, but that said, on balance 10,000s or more lives have been saved due to the donations of billionaires and many of the changes on graphs below seem coincident with markets. I guess I think that if you don't give a good chunk of credit to the allocative efficiency of markets and their wealth creation then you will get wrong answers elsewhere, as I think many socialists do.

And that's before we get to socialist errors on climate change, which currently many seem to be making worlse.

Again, I think that threaded discussion is the right way to go here. I'd prefer to have a google doc than discuss here (or if you want to, perhaps respond to a specific point and we can discuss them 1 by 1). 

I hope you're well. 

Worth noting that this is less than many would have if their assets had been locked. Though compared to many assets 18% return in 19 months isn't bad. 

I had forgotten how much I liked this piece. 

I tried to find errors in this article and wasn't able. Though I didn't try that hard. 

I am not sure I want to tweet it, since it seems very adversarially selected. But of similar magnitude is the issue that people quote torres as if they are a reasonable source when they aren't.

I wish someone would write a more balanced article. I don't think torres was being racist to boghossian's kid, for instance. I think they were harassing boghossian though, and making light of jokes about the kid. And that's bad enough. 

I find it hard to know what one should do over the long term about a badly behaved actor criticized by other badly behaved actors.

Or indeed other kinds of clustering.

I really like the spectrum videos. I often think of how to get that kind of awareness of how we agree and disagree in an online setting. My tool viewpoints is one kind of push at this. viewpoints.xyz.

But there is something really fun about just seeing people share their views on specific points then move on. 

I sense if we did it a lot we'd be a healthier community.

Solid piece. I like lists of things and I appreciate you taking the time to write one.

I sometimes wonder how to combine many qualitative impressions like this into a more robust picture. Some thoughts:

• Someone could survey groups on attrition rates
• Someone could ask how many people group leaders recalled who were in each group type