Gustav Alexandrie
@gustavalexandrie.bsky.social
Econ PhD student at UZH. Interested in welfare econ, including both theory (e.g., social choice) and applications to important issues such as growth, inequality, and catastrophic risks.
My website: http://sites.google.com/view/gustav-alexandrie/
My website: http://sites.google.com/view/gustav-alexandrie/
It's reassuring to know that there exists at least one person who has read the endnotes more closely than I have!
November 20, 2025 at 8:52 PM
It's reassuring to know that there exists at least one person who has read the endnotes more closely than I have!
John Broome's "Weighing Goods".
November 20, 2025 at 8:39 PM
John Broome's "Weighing Goods".
Is there actually any evidence that this is Shor? The fact that a racist account uses his picture is in my mind not sufficient for showing that it is him.
September 15, 2025 at 4:31 AM
Is there actually any evidence that this is Shor? The fact that a racist account uses his picture is in my mind not sufficient for showing that it is him.
As a teenager, I composed this choir piece set to the drowning child passage from Peter Singer's "The Life You Can Save". Not sure it ever convinced anyone of anything though! www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKIz...
August 17, 2025 at 8:34 AM
As a teenager, I composed this choir piece set to the drowning child passage from Peter Singer's "The Life You Can Save". Not sure it ever convinced anyone of anything though! www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKIz...
Yes, EAs have created and funded several such initiatives: bsky.app/profile/pmww...
A lot of folks here rightly mentioning that EAs have denounced the illegal cuts, but we have also created and funded a bunch of initiatives to try to reduce the damage.
www.founderspledge.com/funds/rapid-...
www.founderspledge.com/funds/rapid-...
Rapid Response Fund
The Rapid Response Fund exists to fill critical time-sensitive funding gaps created by the federal freeze on USAID funding — ensuring high-impact organizations continue delivering lifesaving intervent...
www.founderspledge.com
July 2, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Yes, EAs have created and funded several such initiatives: bsky.app/profile/pmww...
I think it would be good if taxes were increased in the US! I'm sure many EAs agree, and that others disagree. That said, foreign aid has never been much more than around 1% of the US federal budget, so paying higher taxes is unlikely to be even close to the best way of helping the world's poorest.
July 2, 2025 at 12:23 PM
I think it would be good if taxes were increased in the US! I'm sure many EAs agree, and that others disagree. That said, foreign aid has never been much more than around 1% of the US federal budget, so paying higher taxes is unlikely to be even close to the best way of helping the world's poorest.
There is some recent work on optimal rent control when the policymaker tries to achieve redistribution: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3...
Econometrica | Econometric Society Journal | Wiley Online Library
Policymakers frequently use price regulations as a response to inequality in the markets they control. In this paper, we examine the optimal structure of such policies from the perspective of mechani...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 1, 2025 at 2:57 PM
There is some recent work on optimal rent control when the policymaker tries to achieve redistribution: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3...
The algorithm works in mysterious ways.
July 1, 2025 at 12:32 PM
The algorithm works in mysterious ways.
I do this on twitter: blocking my feed (for productivity and sanity reasons) and then only go in to check the tweets of a small group of people.
June 19, 2025 at 7:39 PM
I do this on twitter: blocking my feed (for productivity and sanity reasons) and then only go in to check the tweets of a small group of people.
Ja, konflikter bland antropologer får ju ekonomer att se tama ut i jämförelse (utöver Chagnon, see Mead-Freeman controversy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_...).
Alldeles bortsätt från huruvida Chagnons teori om våld är korrekt (svårt att avgöra!) är hans bok läsvärd; många intressanta iakttagelser.
Alldeles bortsätt från huruvida Chagnons teori om våld är korrekt (svårt att avgöra!) är hans bok läsvärd; många intressanta iakttagelser.
Coming of Age in Samoa - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
June 13, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Ja, konflikter bland antropologer får ju ekonomer att se tama ut i jämförelse (utöver Chagnon, see Mead-Freeman controversy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_...).
Alldeles bortsätt från huruvida Chagnons teori om våld är korrekt (svårt att avgöra!) är hans bok läsvärd; många intressanta iakttagelser.
Alldeles bortsätt från huruvida Chagnons teori om våld är korrekt (svårt att avgöra!) är hans bok läsvärd; många intressanta iakttagelser.
Intressant nog är denna kontrovers fortfarande aktiv, med stora skillnader i hur forskare inom olika inriktningar inom antropologin (biologisk vs kulturell) ser på det hela.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1...
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1...
June 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Intressant nog är denna kontrovers fortfarande aktiv, med stora skillnader i hur forskare inom olika inriktningar inom antropologin (biologisk vs kulturell) ser på det hela.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1...
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1...
I would be very interested to hear what those projects were! Do they accept donations?
May 18, 2025 at 12:50 AM
I would be very interested to hear what those projects were! Do they accept donations?
I suspect that there are at least a few people up for tenure review that would make that trade!
(But obviously agree that in general it is probably a very unusual preference.)
(But obviously agree that in general it is probably a very unusual preference.)
May 2, 2025 at 5:43 PM
I suspect that there are at least a few people up for tenure review that would make that trade!
(But obviously agree that in general it is probably a very unusual preference.)
(But obviously agree that in general it is probably a very unusual preference.)
Very large differences. Moreover, they persist when one looks at fatalities per vehicle-kilometres rather than per person.
April 29, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Very large differences. Moreover, they persist when one looks at fatalities per vehicle-kilometres rather than per person.
I also don't think it is very likely that there are current AIs that are conscious. Maybe I am at around 1% or 0.1%. However, I could easily see myself changing my mind, so 15% does not seem preposterous to me.
April 25, 2025 at 9:33 PM
I also don't think it is very likely that there are current AIs that are conscious. Maybe I am at around 1% or 0.1%. However, I could easily see myself changing my mind, so 15% does not seem preposterous to me.
Yes, I agree that not anything goes. Believing that toasters (but not other everyday objects) are conscious is implausible because toasters don't have any plausibly-consciousness-relevant properties that other objects don't have.
In contrast, AIs have the properties I mentioned above.
In contrast, AIs have the properties I mentioned above.
April 25, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Yes, I agree that not anything goes. Believing that toasters (but not other everyday objects) are conscious is implausible because toasters don't have any plausibly-consciousness-relevant properties that other objects don't have.
In contrast, AIs have the properties I mentioned above.
In contrast, AIs have the properties I mentioned above.
Fair enough! Given that n=1, I think we just don't know.
April 25, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Fair enough! Given that n=1, I think we just don't know.
Personally, I really don't know what to make of it. The fact that smart and well-informed people (e.g., David Chalmers) take the question seriously strikes me as good reason for seriously considering the possibility and I am glad that some people are working on this question.
April 25, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Personally, I really don't know what to make of it. The fact that smart and well-informed people (e.g., David Chalmers) take the question seriously strikes me as good reason for seriously considering the possibility and I am glad that some people are working on this question.
AIs have many potential consciousness-relevant properties that couches or radios don't have: domain-general reasoning capabilities, somewhat goal-directed behaviour, trained by an optimizing for fitness. It is very unclear how these considerations should be weighted against other considerations.
April 25, 2025 at 5:10 AM
AIs have many potential consciousness-relevant properties that couches or radios don't have: domain-general reasoning capabilities, somewhat goal-directed behaviour, trained by an optimizing for fitness. It is very unclear how these considerations should be weighted against other considerations.
FWIW, my view is basically this: our sample size of conscious experience is n=1. Based on similarity, it seems reasonable to assign high confidence to other humans and many animals being conscious too. When extrapolating to AIs it becomes much more complicated and we really don't know.
April 25, 2025 at 4:54 AM
FWIW, my view is basically this: our sample size of conscious experience is n=1. Based on similarity, it seems reasonable to assign high confidence to other humans and many animals being conscious too. When extrapolating to AIs it becomes much more complicated and we really don't know.
I'd be curious to hear why, but I realise that the answer might be complicated and take too long to write down!
April 25, 2025 at 4:53 AM
I'd be curious to hear why, but I realise that the answer might be complicated and take too long to write down!