Thanks to you and @Dr. David Mathers for this useful discussion. 

I agree that the voting system is unreasonably disproportionate. I think I got infinite +5 strong votes around 500 karma or so, which strikes me as absurd. And apparently people vote brigade enough for the mod team to ask people not to do so, so it's not like this feature isn't abused at least sometimes. 

I have only read small pieces of the book, but the sections I have read have been fairly clear that the main aim of the book is to shine a light onto a diverse range of voices speaking about negative consequences of effective altruism within animal advocacy. Here's the ending of the introduction:

The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does is, in real part, a project of recovery: there are voices and projects much older than EA, keenly needed activist traditions that EA lacks the resources to asses and so threatens to squelch. We seek to recover, positively, what we are in danger of losing.  (pg. xxx)

It is not intended to persuade effective altruists. Amia Srinivasan more or less says in the forward that she expects effective altruists to essentially ignore the book:

This volume contains many voices to which Effective Altruism as a whole is not in the practice of listening, even when those voices call for things - like the end of farmed animal suffering - that Effective Altruism also supports. Most of the volume's contributors are not philosophers and academics, and do not write in the chosen vernacular of Effective Altruism. They raise worries about the overwhelming whiteness, middle-classness, and maleness of the Effective Altruist community that many of its members are likely to think irrelevant to the assessment of Effective Altruism's value. They often speak from experience, and do not purport to offer alternative general principles that can guide all moral decision-making. There is every possibility, then, that Effective Altruists will ignore what these voices have to say - or fail to take the time to understand what their significance might be. That would be a deep shame, and what's more, a betrayal of what I believe is a real commitment, on the part of many Effective Altruists, to bring about a better world. (pg. xii)

Maybe something like this: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KYzHzqtfnTKmJXNXg/the-toxoplasma-of-agi-doom-and-capabilities 

The wording you used in the post was about "savvy" investors, but my naive understanding of markets is that the savviness or not doesn't particularly matter here. 

savvy investors cannot expect to get rich by betting on short AI timelines. Such a bet simply ties up your capital until it loses its value (either because you're dead, or because you're so rich that it hardly matters). Therefore, a savvy investor with short timelines will simply increase their own consumption.

The short reason is this:

• The reason for an investor to make a bet, is that they believe they will profit later
• However, if they believe in near-term TAI, savvy investors won't value future profits (since they'll be dead or super rich anyways)
• Therefore, there is no way for them to win by betting on near-term TAI

If there are non-negligible portions of investors who believe in near-term TAI and also value future profits, doesn't that put a hole through the argument? 

Why do you think the fraction of investors who believe that the potential outcomes of TAI include situations besides extinction and future profits being worthless is negligible? 

Has anyone written a more detailed account of this? 

I think this is partly downstream of how highly EA prioritizes intelligence and seeming thoughtful/careful. 

Why is this post being downvoted? It's currently at 4 karma from 12 votes. It was at 15+ karma earlier.

I don't have a problem with jokes but they should be a complement to content in cases like this, not a substitute.