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Rationalists try the other side of UK politics: Labour for the Long Term, funding Labour MPs including Wes Streeting, is full of EAs pushing EA goals (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-long-term-effective-altruism-wes-streeting/)
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LLT has a pretty eclectic range of priorities – stopping the use of AI in the military, pandemic preparedness, and allowing neighbours to vote on new local housing developments – all guided by the principle of making ‘long-term’ thinking into a Labour Party priority.

yes, “eclectic” is a word for that

LLT says it wants a political return of so-called ‘cathedral thinking’ – that those who designed Notre Dame didn’t live to see the fruits of their own labour.

Notre Dame’s construction, though, didn’t make life any easier for the poor and hungry who lived in the shadow of it.

zing

Modern cathedral thinking: Look if you think about it, due to climate change the slums under the new spaceX elevator construction site (due ~~2025~~, ~~2035~~, NaN) are prime real estate, the shadow of the huge tower provides ample protection against the scorching sun. And im sure they have fixed the cladding problem this time, third time is the charm. The poors in the slums should thank us really, we are doing it so they can reach the stars. Surely that is worth some hardship.
Two out of three being not terrible is a new high score for these guys; sad that that's still a D.
>LLT says it wants a political return of so-called ‘cathedral thinking’ – that those who designed Notre Dame didn’t live to see the fruits of their own labour. Ah great so these guys are socialists, right? Right?

oh good, I’m relevant again

thought you'd like\* it
*he did not like it.
with poptart as with Nick Land or El Sandifer, the way they react to things they like and things they loathe is hard to distinguish

They’re about to get fucked by the statistically within average bounds dick of the law

I don’t understand why Effective Altruists have decided they should infiltrate center-left parties just to fund the most right-wing factions in those parties against the left

they can just go pull their bullshit in right-wing parties no? those places will be more hospitable for their bigoted beliefs like racial IQ and other bullshit? why fuck with the center-left parties internally?

It's rational. The Tories have got at most two years left in them. The next government will be in power for ten years or more.
They have already tried the right-wing parties in the UK. The problem is, is that right-wing parties are largely incompetent. Getting Cummings as the Chief Advisor to the PM was a massive coup in the UK - but Boris essentially cocked everything up by being an idiot. The last 3 years have been proof that the Tories have no idea how to govern a country. They are largely just there to collect a paycheck. See also, Truss. Whereas Labour on the other hand, at least seem much more receptive to EA thought. Wes Streeting would happily gobble up whatever technocratic solution that you shove in his mouth.
with Dom Cummings they already destroyed their relationship with the Tories
They want to back winners and Tories are extremely toast come the next election

As far as I can tell, Dom Cummings has pretty much laid the blueprint for rationalism in politics. His methods were unreasonably effective, and I doubt that rationalists will see much success here with their mysterious groups, unless they can replicate his path.

>His methods were unreasonably effective Like what? I don't follow British politics closely enough to know much about him, aside from the scandal
https://dominiccummings.com/2017/01/09/on-the-referendum-21-branching-histories-of-the-2016-referendum-and-the-frogs-before-the-storm-2/ Quite a long read from the man himself. I recommend the section starting *Vote Leave exploited these forces* as that sums up the messaging. Largely what I've seen of EA "political interventions" is messaging mainly based on EA priorities such as pandemic preparedness. Unfortunately, it turns out that pandemic preparedness is not an easy sell to voters - they largely don't care about it, compared to more pressing day-to-day concerns. Take a look at Carrick Flynn's campaign video: https://twitter.com/CarrickFlynnOR/status/1488544019802112003 It's completely unfocused; what even is the core message here? It's hardly "Take back control" or "£350 million for the NHS".
I see, I hadn't realized he was behind "£350 million for the NHS" >It's completely unfocused; what even is the core message here? It's hardly "Take back control" or "£350 million for the NHS". To me it seems to mostly be about the candidate himself rather than his platform or goals.
His methods were highly effective the first time he used them , then made illegal. It's basically discovering a new scam.
In what way are they illegal now? lol
Is DC a rationalist? His most recent blog post is against rationalism. What defines a rationalist?
he is absolutely and utterly of the rationalist subculture, the particular one that is the purview of sneerclub
I don’t know what this place is tbh. Was just on my recommended. I haven’t worked out what level of meta you’re operating on.
ok! this place is broadly about the "Rationalist" subculture (that's what they call themselves) centred around the website LessWrong. tl;dr these are the Roko's basilisk people. Here is what they believe: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk they have a number of other bad beliefs, including scientific racism and neoreaction are quite popular and accepted their philosophy is bad and they're awful people some of us gazed into this abyss long enough to enjoy (for some value of enjoy) a subreddit where we can show their latest fucked up shit. so not *unfathomably* meta. if there was a way to stop Reddit's random recommendations that would probably be best for everyone, but I expect there isn't

debate happening in the Renewal journal as well
https://renewal.org.uk/effective-altruism-longtermism-and-democracy-an-interview-with-dr-luke-kemp/

Rationalists can, sort of, read general election polling - shock!