What's the baseline for a market like this? Like positive compared to what?

He's better than Hitler. Probably a better configuration of matter than random gas clouds in space. It should be generally pretty easy to "have better been born than not": Even many axe murderers are probably net positive.

But what's the 0 that the delta to compute sign is being calculated off of?

@Mira Which axe murderer do you think has had the most positive impact on the world?

@Mira I think right now he is comparing him to the average middle or working class American.

And why do you think most axe murderers are positive. Surely if most people are positive killing a person would probably make you negative because you are destroying all their future positivity?

@justifieduseofFallibilism Depends on who they kill and when.

Babies have a low replacement cost and old people are going to die soon anyways. Production of babies can be scaled up much higher than it currently is and nobody loses sleep over such lost positive value. It's possible pregnant women count as worth more than infertile women. An axe murderer that earlier or later in their life becomes a scientist or bednet social worker could easily outvalue a single baby. Males may be more volatile in outcomes and so there is additional embedded options value in their impact. If an axe murderer kills an AGI researcher in such way that doesn't create bad PR for the cause, EAs may consider this a net positive since it slightly lessens the risk of humanity's extinction. Babies have less variance than adults, so are closer to the mean impact of the population.

It's quite the complicated calculation to determine's someone's global "net impact". There could be thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of variables, easily enough to hide a few babies.

@Mira To be fair, I think some people are losing sleep over lost positive value of low birth rates. It's difficult to find solutions that are both effective and politically viable

@Mira I am saddened my low fertility rates. And arguably anti abortion people lose sleep over the same issue though they think about it in a more deontological way.

I would expect even though babies can easily be replaced that it happens relatively rarely that parents decide to have one extra baby it theirs is killed. Maybe it is higher for newborns but once they are age 2 I would expect a replacement rate of only 0.4 or so (in the western world maybe subsistence farmers would be closer to 1).

If we consider that the average axe murderer also pays fewer taxes, is probably less likely to be a scientist then he probably becomes negative on average.

(And this is all assuming humans in general are positive, if we include factory farming maybe axe murderers are actually the most positive humans.)

@Mira You have a bizarrely high opinion of axe murderers. I doubt the worst 20% of Americans are net positive, much less people prone to insane criminal violence.

@Mira Why do you think it is easy to be net positive (relative to a gas-cloud)? I think if you are not vegan and you don't pay a lot of taxes or donate a lot to chairty the world would be better had you not been born in 99% of cases.

Currently most humans just consume resources, causing a lot of suffering in the process, and then do nothing worthwhile with their lives.

Since this is like 99.9% of people, and many people are altruistically motivated to some degree, this should suffice to show that being net positive isn't easy in any reasonable sense.

(edit: also, just to make clear, since the take above might be controversial, I am still broadly speaking very pro-natalist. I also don't think killing living people is ethical, even if it'd been better had they been aborted or never concieved)

Ok, I think people have made some good arguments that my standards are too high, and that Destiny has improved over the years. Any counterarguments to those?

I think that this year in particular he has made a major shift to constructive debate and explanation. He seems to care much more about teaching methods of comingto reliable information yourself rather than "I preach you listen" or shoving his opinions down your throat as law. With that and his efforts at canvassing and going about new and relevant means of spreading a message of truthseeking have been very much positive in terms of their effect on viewers. In terms of relationship stuff, I agree that many streamers may have strange and harmful romantic lives on stream but destiny also makes it clear that most people should not attempt his kind if relationship and that it isn't for everybody. On top of that, if it really is an inferior form of relationship, then it will be made obvious by the fact that it is streamed to the world in all its details and the viewers can see fir themselves how well it works or not. Just a few personal reasons why I think destiny is making a positive change in the world, this year in particular.

No idea what your Ukrainian position is, but if you want to see him at his best arguing engaging with a topic, I really recommend this debate (for at minimum the opening) when it is clear that when he dives into a topic he can really effectively appear (to me, obviously I'm biased) be able to clearly pull from extremists audiences.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nzqHDgSqck8&pp=ygUcZGVzdGlueSBuaWNrIGZ1ZW50ZXMgdWtyYWluZQ%3D%3D

The last year has also shown the ability that he has to appear as almost a moderator for red pill audiences, to be both entertaining enough to appeal to the audiences, thoughtful enough to understand where those audiences get their beliefs, while also still being able to make counter arguments that in a way that hopefully leads young men to healthier sources.

None of this is to even bring up his actual political actions (organizing in Georgia for the special election) that show legitimate effort towards achieving goals, not just drama farming.

If you look at early clips of destiny, it's clear he was just a really good debate bro looking to score points and audience, but the last year or two it's also clear that there has been a marketed shift in rhetoric and actions that seem to be an active effort to have a positive effect.

It's probably also the worst time to pay attention to any of his content given it's going to be filled up with all the divorce stuff, plus end of the year joke stuff like The Destiny Awards.

I think the best comparison to me for him is a political Sam Harris that was born 20 years later and grew up under much different circumstances.

I think the main negatives that have been brought up are the drama style content and his trollish community. I think both of these exist in spades in a million places on the internet. If the destiny subreddit disappeared off the planet, or if destiny stopped streaming, I don't think there'd be a meaningful change in the amount of drama nonsense or trollish internet activity. In my head that means the net negative of his input on these is negligible.

On the other hand, I think destiny stands out from the crowd wrt his positives. I think he's good at not just following his tribe (he's left leaning in the states, but on several occasions has come down hard on the opposite side from the rest of the left), and I think he's good at going into places where people have radically different views and engaging with them in a way that exposes his audience to other worldviews they might not even know exist, and equips them with the arguments for both sides of those disagreements. You mention in the description that you think he does this by winning the insult fight; that's not my impression. I think he goes into these communities very softly and empathetically to begin with, to the point where he gets yelled at for playing too nice with the nazis etc, then ramps it up in later conversations to be more aggressive. My guess is this is an effective way to persuade audiences, but even if it's not optimal, it's still a positive (assuming you don't agree with the positions he's persuading people away from). But I think the important bit is that there's not a lot of people doing the same thing. If he didn't exist I don't think there's someone else who auto-fills the void and starts going into these communities to have these arguments as effectively as he does. The result being hundreds of thousands of people getting less exposure to contrary points of view. I agree with what Ben wrote below; I think the bar for being a net positive in improving how people think should low. To me, that's a big net positive.

You've mentioned in comments that you think he's bad faith in debates - that really surprises me, and maybe I've got a bias thing going on. I consider that a big positive of his, I think he's really good at engaging with a question genuinely. There are definitely places where this gets dropped, his Milo Yiannopoulos debate being an example, but I think I've only seen it happen where A) the other person is clearly not interested in finding the truth and B) the other person initiated the bad faith/meanness. Again though, that's exactly what I would think if I were super biased, so maybe I'm just not clocking the counter examples.

hahahahahahahaahaha

Found this market through the Reddit thread. I think the main thing you are not properly accounting for is how far from conforming to the manifold/rationalist/EA cultural ideal the average person is. We're living in a country where the majority of people believe dozens of basic falsehoods that are one google search away.

In short, you should lower your expectations for humanity. If you think that getting people to be a bit more introspective and challenging their basic assumptions is a good thing then I think it's very hard to argue that destiny has been a net negative.

If you want evidence of this I would just point to how many current or former fans of Destiny are on Manifold. This was a platform he did not even know about or do anything to promote but these markets are easily the second most influential subculture on the site behind EA and many of the top traders and mods are current for former DGG.

Sorry you got a rough response on the subreddit. People on there probably interpreted you as a troll/hater/crank for linking the Mr Girl post.

People have posted some good arguments, but here's a bad argument:

1. Mana can only be spent on charities

2. Charities are entities which have a positive impact on the world

3. Mana can be spent on destiny subs

4. 1 and 3 implies Destiny is a charity

5. 2 and 4 implies Destiny has a positive impact on the world

QED

What do you mean by "all the damage they've done to people's idea of what a healthy polyamerous relationship should look like"? I think most people see all the drama in his relationship as a sign that it's not a healthy relationship. He also recently got divorced, so even more true now I guess 🙃. And most of the negative things you mention are things that have to do with streamers and the incentives related to that. I don't really see how someone in a polyamerous relationship would get negatively impacted by watching Destiny.

Basically, I don't think his relationship has much of an overall impact in the world and I think you're giving it too much weight in your assessment. He explicitly tells people not to copy his relationship, and when he discusses relationships he tends to discuss monogamous relationships as that is what's relevant to most people.

@Pazzaz If this is the window that thousands of people get into polyamorous relationships, with one of its members always saying "don't do this", that furthers the stigma that exists around polyamory.

@IsaacKing do you not agree that "this is probably a bad idea for a majority of people" is accurate with regards to polyamory? (as a poly person) I generally found his handling of the topic to be pretty accurate and responsible, explaining everything fairly, including how he is in a situation that most people aren't in.

@CodeandSolder I don't think so? I expect a large fraction of people, somewhere between 10% and 80%, would be perfectly happy in polyamorous relationships if they could just be grown-ups about it.

And regardless of what he says, his behavior conveys a negative impression.

@IsaacKing I would absolutely love to live in a counterfactual world where 80% of the population can "just be grown-ups about" things.

And I don't think there is anything he can be expected to do, he is polyamorous, in a relatively healthy way from what I've seen. If he was for example doing some single sided open relationship nonsense and calling it polyamory I'd agree that's bad, but that's not the case

@CodeandSolder It doesn't seem that healthy to me? At the end of his Lex interview he mentions that he likes "crazy people".

@IsaacKing but that is not an issue with how he's doing polyamory, that's a question of who he's doing it with. I wouldn't consider expecting somebody to pick their partners based on how the possible outcomes of that choice will reflect on their preferred relationship style to be reasonable. All the polyamory aspects seem to be fine, his partners are consenting adults and AFAIK they are being communicated with honestly and openly

I'm not following him very closely though and if there is evidence to the contrary I'm open to changing my mind

@CodeandSolder @IsaacKing I think it's an unfortunate reality that individuals from marginalized demographics and lifestyles act as representatives. It's not fair but it's true. Destiny definitely displays via his actions that polyamory is a volatile lifestyle.

However, I will say that his words are probably exactly what Isaac would want them to be. He's talked many times in a "do as I say, not as I do" kind of way about his dating habits, and he draws pretty clear lines between problems that are caused by polyamory and problems that are caused by his personality and his choice in women.

I will also say that his example of polyamory isn't THAAAAT bad. The awareness he brings to polyamory as a thing that you can even do, combined with his good messaging, might outweigh him not being a model polyamory enjoyer. I wouldn't die on that hill though.