Moment of Zen Ep 10 w/ Amjad Masad
Disutility, rise and fall of intellectual movements, what virtues are you talking about bro?, and a look ahead to Episode 11.
Hey MOZarts,
Someone tell Antonio to keep hopping on our Riverside calls…
Disutility
Amjad shared that he arrived at the conclusion that utilitarianism was flawed in his early twenties. He found that it led to repugnant conclusions and believed that having principles and virtues to guide oneself in life was important, in addition to focusing on outcomes. He argued that solely relying on utilitarianism could result in disastrous consequences due to errors in predictions and spreadsheets. Furthermore, he mentioned that it is possible to justify anything with infinite utility or disutility, which makes utilitarianism irrational. Masad cites the problem of Pascal's mugging, where discounting infinity is difficult, and suggested applying probabilities to future events instead.
Rise and Fall of Intellectual Movements
Amjad also discussed the rise and fall of various intellectual movements such as New Atheism, Social Justice, and Effective Altruism. He explained how these movements started with a kernel of truth and became deranged over time. A wave of New Atheism picked up after 9/11, particularly with Sam Harris and others discussing the problem of Islam and how religion is a dangerous force in the world. However, this movement lost steam as people began to see that pure theistic obsession also has problems. Social Justice then gained traction but became lame after Trump's election. Effective Altruism emerged as another intellectual movement that used utilitarian arguments to maximize happiness across the world. Masad predicts that the current movement of safety will take the same direction as social justice did, becoming national and militant, and that all these movements share a characteristic of becoming deranged over time and attacking anyone who does not believe like them.
What Virtues are you Talking About, Bro?
Antonio on virtue ethics —“Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) basically robbed people blind for ten million dollars. But if he actually saved enough people, would it be worthwhile? That's one question we're not asking. Like, was that the calculus going on in SBF's head? And if so, was he wrong? What if he had gotten away with it? What if the crypto markets hadn't tanked in 2022 and he made a bunch of money, and then he cured some disease in the world? Was it worth it? By the calculus, it would have been, but I think by most calculus it would not have been. [William] MacCaskill, actually tweeted, 'No, but by the way, we need virtue ethics.' Well, what virtues are you talking about, bro? They're not in the fucking spreadsheet. Why do I care about them? That's the fundamental problem? That's why utilitarianism, unguided by deontology, meaning a more rules-based system, is basically insane. And that's the short version, agreed."
Highlighting Youtube Comments
As a reminder, we look through every YouTube comment and wish to continue highlighting the good, the be better, and the funny. Fortunately, this week’s comments were overwhelmingly positive so seems like we’re doing some things right.
The Good
The Be Better
The Funny
We unbiasedly agree.
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Links for references discussed in this episode
19:00 - Economics in one Lesson & Thomas Sowell
21:00 - How Asia works
22:30 - Coming Apart - Read about Charles Murray here
26:00 - WTFhappened in 1971
30:10 - The Bitcoin Standard
32:10 - Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld’s book The Triple package
35:10 - Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men / Nicholas Eberstadt's Men Without Work
36:23 - Women want men over 6 feet
39:00 - The Ordeal of Civility by John Murray Cuddihy
42:00 - Joseph Henrich’s WEIRDest People In the World
44:00 - The Restless Republic and Dominion
59:00 - Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, Christopher Hitchens’ God is not great
Eliezer Yudkowsky’s tweet about abortion at 18 months
01:08:50 - Pascal’s Mugging
01:09:03 - Bayesianism
01:20:00 - Peter Singer
01:22:00 - Eliezer Yudkwosky
01:29:00 - Robert Conquest Second law
01:31:00 - Entryisim
1:35:30 - Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals
1:39:00 - Mercatus Center
Bryan Caplan’s Don’t be a Feminist
Joe Lonsdale article To Save America, Restore Our Frontier
Joe Lonsdale’s University of Austin
NYT recent In Defense of J.K. Rowling
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The next episode of Moment of Zen will be an explainer episode and drop tomorrow Saturday, March 4th.
