shakha @shakha@qoto.org

Peter Singer's 'The Life You Can Save' has been released as a free ebook or audiobook :) https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/

Singer makes a philosophical argument for what we should be doing in response to global poverty. I haven't read this book yet, but I've found his other work to be concise and compelling and would recommend checking it out. He advocates for impactful, evidence-based action.

#PeterSinger #TheLifeYouCanSave #EffectiveAltruism #books #poverty

Another valuable lesson: make sure you’re using words the same way in a conversation and delineate any additional assumptions you’re making before carrying on.

But yeah, I think we’re generally aligned on this topic.

@freemo You’re right. I modified the definition to specify things that could actually be fulfilled since the curse requires your wishes to be fulfilled. In the example I gave earlier, I’m not sure if losing motivation there could happen through any kind of fulfilment.

@freemo are you just defining wishes to be any motivation at all? Because yeah, by that definition, you have no motivation left when you have no wishes left. Agreed, haha.

@freemo If you have something that fulfils you without a clear end point, the only wish that can really be fulfilled is to have an idea of how to keep on that path or to not have obstacles that prevent it (like unmanageable and crippling health issues).

A cliche example: if you wanted to make the world a better place, how could that logically be fulfilled? Maybe if it was defined as better than at a particular moment, but what if it was always “better than currently” whenever you thought of it?

@freemo is not wishing for something the same as wishing not to have it?

@freemo the second one is pretty dark, considering what kind of people need to hold positions of power for that to be a curse.

@freemo that’s why you wish for more wishes haha.

More seriously, it’s possible to have sources of motivation that give you directions to go in rather than clearly defined end goals. These remain with you even if your wishes come true (or become impossible, depending on what life throws at you).

Google Fires 4 Workers Active in Labor Organizing https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/technology/google-fires-workers.html

"In the memo, Google said the fired employees had repeatedly searched for, looked through and distributed information “outside the scope of their jobs.” One of the workers set up notifications to receive emails detailing the work and whereabouts of other employees without their knowledge or consent, the memo said."
...
"The Tech Workers Coalition, an advocacy group, said on Twitter on Monday that the four employees had been fired for “organizing at work” and encouraged workers at Google to “speak out against this draconian act.” "

It seems like other Google employees, those who have been vocal on this, are on the side of those who were fired. They held a rally last week to protest actions taken against two of the people who were fired (video here: https://www.alphabetworkers.org/videos/).

I only just learnt of the events that apparently led up to this. Has anyone here been following the story? #Google

@freemo But racism is a set of ideas that is censored here. Slurs are only slurs because of the ideas they represent.

@freemo

I can say that I haven't yet seen any examples of that kind of behaviour at QOTO, and I would not expect to based on the quality of the dialogue that I have seen.

Why not remove or amend phrases like that in the about page if they are not true in practice or even according to the ToS? "No censorship" is mentioned in the first few lines and it seem to be misleading more than anything.

@zevahs 'Factfulness' by Hans Rosling!

For fiction, I find it harder to say. Everyone should try to read and live in a variety of worlds for a while, haha.

@chikara Also, just a thought, you don't need to be able to carry out the whole process to have a good dialogue. Keeping some of the principles in mind can already make a difference.

Clarifying definitions to ensure that you aren't talking past each other is important in any conversation, and avoiding debate in favour of examining one side in depth can already be quite powerful.

I thought of this conversation, which didn't follow SE properly but the interviewee actually changed their mind through the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS8weFKmobo

Also, I should have shared this earlier, but here's a proper SE conversation from a really great channel that also posts other videos about the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWmUYZ29y98

@chikara I think it can be, but I'm not sure. The biggest challenge I've found is keeping the conversation focused, because you need that to be able to examine a belief in depth, and the person whose belief you're discussing should have the time and space they need to think through things.

This could be difficult to do on any social media if several people are chiming in to the same conversation, or if you're both just checking in while doing other tasks, because the person doesn't necessarily have the time to reflect on things before answering.

It's also difficult to do this if someone wants to talk about multiple claims all at once (e.g. with religion, if they want to talk about several things they believe are true about their god, or if they take issue with people who hold an ideology, multiple complaints about those people and what they do), and you have to narrow it down to one to be able to discuss examine in depth. I've sometimes had trouble getting to just one point in person, or maybe you need time for someone to also let everything out first.

Then again, maybe the flexibility you get from social media (vs. in-person chats) to reply only when you've both had time to think about things could be helpful.

@design_RG Thanks for the recommendation! This looks super useful :)

Considering the name of this instance, this seems like the right place to ask. Is anyone here into street epistemology?

For anyone who hasn't heard of it, it's a conversational technique used to examine beliefs that is similar to socratic questioning, but you focus *just* on the method(s) used to reach a particular belief. An outline for how it goes: https://streetepistemology.com/publications/street_epistemology_the_basics You essentially act as a sounding board for someone else to reflect on how they reached a particular belief, and you keep your own beliefs out of it to avoid turning it into a debate. Hopefully useful for the person reflecting on their belief, but also good for the SE practitioner to get to know the other person's thinking better (and maybe shed themselves of straw men in the process?).

People primarily seem to be using it for supernatural/religious claims at the moment, but it seems like a useful tool for constructive conversations in all kinds of contexts. There are tons of videos on youtube of SE-based conversations.

#SE #StreetEpistemology #Philosophy

@binsrc that's pretty cool :) the monitoring program sounds quite interesting too!