πΊπΎ en π¬π§ ~ π and research ~ he/him
Montevideo - London
Joined May 2018
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A list of people in the rugby world who oppose @WorldRugby plans.
Back to writing :)
Morphine is among the cheapest essential medicines there is. Ten days of oral morphine costs about the same as a loaf of bread.
Yet, in most of the world: the need for severe pain relief still goes unmet.
@morganfairlessb in @indevmag: indevelopmentmag.substack.coβ¦
Morgan Fairless retweeted
Morphine is among the cheapest essential medicines there is. Ten days of oral morphine costs about the same as a loaf of bread.
Yet, in most of the world: the need for severe pain relief still goes unmet.
@morganfairlessb in @indevmag: indevelopmentmag.substack.coβ¦
Morgan Fairless retweeted
Fun post. I think most of the people that travelled this path were/are sincere BUT it's also very funny that there was a moment where they also determined that the money going on insecticide-treated bednets might be better used for extremely generous spending on themselves
>be me
>discover effective altruism
>apparently normal charity is inefficient
>why donate to random sad thing when spreadsheet can tell you optimal sad thing
>fair enough
>buy mosquito nets
>save lives
>numbers look good
>feel powerful
>couple years later
>someone asks an innocent question
>why only count people alive today
>huh
>future people matter too
>obviously
>my grandchildren shouldn't matter less just because they haven't spawned yet
>reasonable.jpg
>keep following logic
>what about their grandchildren
>also yes
>what about people in 500 years
>sure
>5000 years
>why not
>500 million years
>starting to get weird but morality is morality
>open calculator
>humanity could survive for an astronomically long time
>could colonize galaxy
>could have trillions upon trillions of descendants
>maybe digital people too
>maybe simulated civilizations
>maybe dyson spheres full of happy uploaded minds
>calculator starts smoking
>realize currently living humans are rounding error
>8 billion people suddenly looking extremely beta
>future contains potentially 10^something people
>can't even fit beneficiaries in google sheets
>new moral priority unlocked
>protect the long-term future
>stop thinking in units of "people helped"
>start thinking in "fraction of cosmic endowment preserved"
>malaria?
>terrible
>but only kills existing humans
>AI extinction could delete the entire light cone
>nuclear war could permanently derail civilization
>bad institutions could lock in terrible values for ten million years
>someone invents wrong constitution in 2140
>quadrillions suffer
>better fund governance workshop now
>friend says maybe we should improve hospitals
>explain opportunity cost
>friend says hospitals are full of actual sick people
>explain scope sensitivity
>friend stops inviting me to dinner
>need to decide what to fund
>easy
>expected value
>suppose project has one in a million chance of preventing extinction
>sounds tiny
>but extinction destroys 10^50 future lives
>multiply
>mother of god
>$10 million project has expected value of several galaxies
>charity evaluation complete
>someone asks where the one-in-a-million number came from
>expert judgement
>which expert
>us
>how calibrated
>extremely thoughtfully
>reduce estimate to one in ten million to be conservative
>still beats curing cancer by 38 orders of magnitude
>epistemic robustness achieved
>someone says maybe project doesn't work
>assign 20% chance
>still astronomical
>maybe project makes problem worse
>assign 5% chance
>still astronomical
>why 5
>because 30 felt pessimistic
>publish 46-page report
>contains seventeen sensitivity analyses
>every sensitivity analysis begins after assuming intervention has positive sign
>critic says you're multiplying enormous hypothetical stakes by extremely uncertain probabilities
>yes
>that's literally why it's important
>critic says the uncertainty might be structural rather than numerical
>make probability smaller
>critic says no, I mean maybe your model is wrong
>make probability smaller again
>critic begins rubbing temples
>discover AI safety
>perfect longtermist cause
>AI might kill everyone
>or create utopia
>or seize galaxy
>or tile universe with paperclips
>or create billions of conscious software minds
>finally a problem with numbers big enough for me
>start AI safety nonprofit
>mission: prevent dangerous AI
>hire smartest people available
>smartest people immediately start building better AI to understand dangerous AI
>interesting
>we must understand capabilities to understand safety
>we must scale models to study alignment
>we must race ahead so less responsible actors don't get there first
>we must deploy systems to learn how deployment can go wrong
>we must build the thing quickly because building the thing quickly is dangerous
>outsider asks why the people most worried about AI apocalypse all work at AI companies
>complicated field
>company releases stronger model
>very concerned
>company begins training even stronger model
>extremely concerned
>company raises $14 billion
>concern reaches unprecedented levels
>need to influence government
>future is at stake
>normal democratic process too slow
>politicians don't understand exponential curves
>public doesn't understand x-risk
>experts must guide them
>who counts as expert
>people who understand x-risk
>who understands x-risk
>our friends
>someone objects that this seems politically convenient
>explain we're representing future generations
>future generations unavailable for comment
>develop concept of value lock-in
>terrifying possibility that one ideology controls civilization forever
>therefore extremely important that civilization adopts correct values before lock-in
>whose values
>let's circle back
>begin with impartial morality
>end with small group of people deciding what quadrillions of hypothetical beings would want
>beautiful arc
>meanwhile actual humans keep doing annoying things
>voting wrong
>having parochial attachments
>loving family more than strangers
>caring about local community
>getting upset when told their suffering is cosmically negligible
>evolutionary biases everywhere
>explain that moral intuition cannot be trusted
>except intuition that future digital people count
>and intuition that extinction is uniquely bad
>and intuition that our probability estimates are sane
>and intuition that our institutional choices improve the future
>those intuitions survived peer review
>someone donates $5k to local homeless shelter
>inefficient
>could have funded 0.0000000000003% of an AI governance researcher
>think of all the simulated people you just killed
>okay maybe don't phrase it that way publicly
>PR team says "future generations deserve a voice"
>much better
>journalist asks what longtermism means
>say "future people matter"
>everyone agrees
>great
>journalist asks what follows from that
>well technically we should redirect enormous resources toward low-probability interventions affecting astronomical futures
>journalist raises eyebrow
>return to "future people matter"
>motte has entered the chat
>critic: of course future people matter
>me: glad we agree
>critic: I don't agree that your institute knows how to help them
>me: why do you hate our grandchildren
>eventually notice uncomfortable implication
>if future value dominates everything
>then helping people today mostly matters through effects on future
>education matters because future institutions
>health matters because future productivity
>democracy matters because future trajectory
>human beings slowly become instrumental variables in their own moral philosophy
>see starving child
>feel compassion
>check spreadsheet
>child's direct welfare contribution negligible
>but perhaps childhood nutrition improves national institutional quality
>compassion restored
>tell myself this is impartial altruism
>one day assistant asks obvious question
>"how do you know your intervention actually improves the far future?"
>silence
>open spreadsheet
>increase column width
>add confidence interval
>assistant asks again
>"no, I mean how do you know the sign is positive?"
>stare into cosmic light cone
>10^50 people staring back
>none of them exist
>none of them can tell me
>none of them can falsify my assumptions
>realize I have invented the perfect constituency
>infinitely important
>completely silent
>and always represented by me
Mystery Chart #9 Β· 975/1000
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I have to say I oscillate between appreciating the coverage of T2 rugby and finding this constant negative drudgery off-putting. No team is allowed a mishap without being placed into some overarching narrative of downfall
Did πΊπΎ Uruguayan rugby hit its ceiling vs France in 2023?
The last decade of Uruguayan rugby has been a tremendous effort from all those involved because as a rugby nation it doesn't have a huge amount going for it.
It is a small population of 3.4m, that is based around a small segment of that population, and has little resources, not much of a diaspora in a Tier 1 country, no ability to recruit residency players, doesn't get much attention from scouts in France so very few players have experience at elite level, and doesn't produce too many with huge physiques so has one of the smallest packs in international rugby.
Yet since defeating Russia to return to the RWC in 2015, they have since built a program which has shocked Fiji at RWC 2019 for a massive upset, comprehensively beat USA 34-15 in 2021 to confirm them as leading Tier 2 side of the Americas, were not far off getting a draw away vs Italy in 2021, were only 20-12 down vs one of the leading rugby nations in the world France with 10 minutes to go at RWC 2023 (and France were lucky not to get a red card in that match), led Italy at HT in the match after that, and were tied 19-19 vs Scotland when they met in 2024.
For Uruguay to grow and be competing like that vs Tier 1 nations given the small resources and player pool they have is a huge credit to the coaches, players, administrators. In my opinion they are perhaps the biggest overachievers in international rugby of the last 10 years. Furthermore their success played a big part in setting the model and inspiring Chile to rise out of the dire state they were in the 2010s.
However, Uruguayan rugby has had to work very hard to eek out the best of what they have available. The problem is when you are close to maximising your resources, it is very hard to keep that up generationally.
The names of Arata, Leindekar, Diana, Kessler, Sanguinetti, Vilaseca, Freitas who have been linchpins over this past 10 years for Uruguay will not be around forever and could all be playing their last RWC in 2027 (the latter two may not make the tournament at all).
Nations with smaller talent pools tend to be more prone to greater generational variance. There is not a conveyor belt of talent like New Zealand or South Africa may have. It will not be easy and far from guaranteed to grow successors who can be the equal of all those players.
The biggest concern of a bad month for Uruguay was not an understrength team losing to Hong Kong as embarrassing as that was. It was their U20s were at an extremely weak level going 31-303 aggregate points in their five games at the Junior World Cup. This isn't like Scotland or USA having a bad U20 year. Nations like that have many players outside their U20 pathway. Uruguay's national team comes 95% from players from its youth system.
The other huge concern is that after 10 years of Teros overachievement and such spirited efforts to compete against giants on the biggest stage. It hasn't appeared to lead to growth of fanbase much at all. This is obviously a big problem as it means they cannot easily grow revenue, create more support and encouragement at the ground for home advantage, and then for those fans to pass it down to their children to be the future pool of players, coaches, and supporters of next generations to give Uruguayan rugby a better chance of keeping growing for years to come.
As it is, the question is did Uruguay max out on its potential and hit its ceiling in that excellent effort in 2023 vs France? (You can debate which performance ranks as Uruguay's peak but that for me was top given the strength of opponent). Are they capable as a rugby nation of ever getting an even better shock win than vs Fiji?
Not all hope is lost. They did after all have quite a good U20 team as recently as 2023 that pulled off a shock upset vs Scotland. Arata, Ardao and others from the Meneses generation of players are not finished yet. But nevertheless the past month has raised major concerns for the future of how the past decades achievement can be sustained or even improved on going forward, especially in an era of WR reducing funding for Tier 2 rugby.
The U20 WC is a challenge, yes, but we have basically no academies. The role of the WC is for younger players to essentially decide if they wish to pursue a career in the sport in our case. We've had better and worse years, and this year is worse.
Morgan Fairless retweeted
My controversial WC take is there's more honour in having a nightmare game where nothing works & you lose 7-1 than getting to the final in controversy, fail to make a single shot on goal, try to get rival players expelled after making awful fouls & beat them up at the end
No me logro explicar porque estando perdiendo y sin Hooker pedimos Scrum dos veces, faltando 5 minutos, cuando es el restart que demora mΓ‘s tiempo.
Morgan Fairless retweeted
Hard to find a better demonstration of the dangers of relying on sparse and unreliable quantified evidence, just because it's quantified, in the face of much better counter-evidence. forum.effectivealtruism.org/β¦
Morgan Fairless retweeted
Feels like a good time to start telling the story of how I got here.
Here's the first instalment of my personal essay series 'Otherwise Healthy', where I'll reflect on my cancer diagnosis, treatment and everything in-between. Feedback welcome open.substack.com/pub/christβ¦
Morgan Fairless retweeted
I'm in remission! But I won't stay there without a stem cell transplant. If you're young, Black and reading this please register to become a donor dkms.org.uk/get-involved/bec⦠(UK) dkms.org/get-involved/become⦠(US)
