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The Test Stand

Ideas go on the stand.

Trey Goff learns in public. Long conversations about AI, politics, culture, philosophy, economics, and how institutions actually change, with the people who think hardest about them.

Episode 1 · 1 hr 44 min

Is Effective Altruism Evil? with Niklas Anzinger

Watch the episodeSpotifyApple Podcasts

Episode 1 · Is Effective Altruism Evil? with Niklas Anzinger

Watch the episodeSpotifyApple Podcasts

Episodes

  1. Episode 1 · · 1 hr 44 min

    Is Effective Altruism Evil?

    with Niklas Anzinger, founder and CEO of Infinita

    Trey Goff published an essay arguing that effective altruism is evil. His friend Niklas Anzinger, founder and CEO of Infinita, thinks that is too strong, and takes the essay apart.

    Watch and read alongSpotifyApple Podcasts
    9:34The bednets that became fishing nets40:40“This is probably the weakest point that I made”1:09:31SpaceX blows up engines on purpose1:28:19Honesty as the winning strategy in DC
    1. 0:00Why this show exists
    2. 1:44Who Niklas Anzinger is
    3. 5:04Trey’s steelman of effective altruism
    4. 9:34The bednets that became fishing nets
    5. 11:25Utilitarianism, longtermism, and infinity
    6. 17:36Niklas on weak deontology and “evil”
    7. 22:29AI doomerism as the real danger
    8. 25:42Animal suffering and impartiality
    9. 29:59The drowning child
    10. 31:20Moral concealment and open-source AI
    11. 40:40Trey concedes his weakest point
    12. 46:09Scientism and the limits of RCTs
    13. 53:52The hidden third variable
    14. 1:01:02Cowardice and entrepreneurship
    15. 1:07:31SpaceX versus NASA
    16. 1:13:25Abolitionism versus incrementalism
    17. 1:20:55Decision strategy and tit for tat
    18. 1:28:19Honesty as the winning strategy
    19. 1:35:28Play the game you’re good at
    20. 1:42:42Close

    The whole conversation: Trey above the line, Niklas below. Pick a chapter or a flame to start there.

Why it’s called The Test Stand

A test stand is where engineers bolt down a new rocket engine and light it to see whether it holds together or blows apart. The Test Stand does that to ideas.

Trey builds special economic zones and works on governance reform in Washington, so the questions have skin in the game. Sometimes he brings a claim he has already published and lets a friend take it apart. Sometimes he brings a question he is stuck on. Sometimes it is just a long conversation with someone who has thought harder about something than he has.

What survives contact with reality is what we keep.

Hosted by Trey Goff.

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If something here didn’t hold up, tell me. That’s the point.

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