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Articles by John Halstead
Thoughts on Homophobia and Toxic Masculinity from a Straight Father of Bisexual Children
I was recently asked to give a talk at my Unitarian church on National Coming Out Day.* My wife and I have two children. Our son is now 23, and our daughter is 20. Our daughter came out to us several ago as bisexual when she was in high school. Our son out to us much later, just a year ago, when he was 22, by telling us he was dating a man. He is attracted to both men and women, and he is now dating a nonbinary person-which in a way throws the whole hetero-homo binary out the window.
Violence Before Agriculture: Full Report
This is our full report into the question of how violent pre-agricultural societies were, and how violence changed once societies transitioned to agriculture. Phil did 95% of the work.1 This research was carried out for William MacAskill’s What We Owe the Future. Expert reviewers provided the following comments on our report.
Violence Before Agriculture: Summary
This is a summary of a report on trends in violence since the dawn of humanity: from the hunter-gatherer period to the present day. The full report is available in the next post. This research was carried out for Professor William MacAskill’s What We Owe the Future. Expert reviewers provided the following comments on our report.
Climate Change & Longtermism: new book-length report
Since 2021, as part of the research for What We Owe the Future, I have been working on a report on climate change from a longtermist perspective. The report aims to provide the most complete treatment of that question yet produced. The executive summary is below and the full report is here, available at the What We Owe the Future supplementary materials webpage. I am grateful to the expert reviewers of the report for their comments. Views and mistakes are my own.
Why I Changed My Mind About Guns
In 2018, in the wake of the Parkland shooting, I helped organize a protest at a gun show being held at our county fairgrounds. I live in Indiana, just across the border from Chicago, so guns bought in my hometown often make their way to Chicago, which has much stricter gun laws. Unfortunately, Indiana state laws prevent local governments from passing any ordinance to restrict gun shows in their towns.
The Future Might Not Be So Great
Many thanks for feedback and insight from Kelly Anthis, Tobias Baumann, Jan Brauner, Max Carpendale, Sasha Cooper, Sandro Del Rivo, Michael Dello-Iacovo, Michael Dickens, Anthony DiGiovanni, Marius Hobbhahn, Ali Ladak, Simon Knutsson, Greg Lewis, Kelly McNamara, John Mori, Thomas Moynihan, Caleb Ontiveros, Sean Richardson, Zachary Rudolph, Manny Rutinel, Stefan Schubert, Michael St. Jules, Nell Watson, Peter Wildeford, and Miranda Zhang.
AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities
Preamble: (If you're already familiar with all basics and don't want any preamble, skip ahead to Section B for technical difficulties of alignment proper.) I have several times failed to write up a well-organized list of reasons why AGI will kill you. People come in with different ideas about why AGI would be survivable, and want to hear different obviously key points addressed first.
Should we buy coal mines?
At Effective Altruism Global, Will MacAskill proposed the idea of buying a coal mine in order to keep coal in the ground, as a potential longtermist megaproject. The idea was covered in a piece by Richard Fisher for the BBC here. There is a large literature in economics on the idea of reducing the supply of fossil fuels in the economics literature, and the idea recently received additional attention thanks to a post by Alex Tabarrok on the Marginal Revolution blog here.
11 Things Influential People Do Differently
Leading with laser sharp competence part 3 out of 4 on Influence By: John R. Halstead Life Edge Influential leaders get to know their people very well both professionally and personally. This helps them to understand the whole person and how issues both at work and at home effect productivity. By knowing their people leaders know their passions, strengths, struggles, and motivations.
Are we going to run out of phosphorous?
I have recently looked into the threat of 'peak phosphorous' and thought I would quickly share my findings, as phosphorous is arguably one of the more plausible 'peak resource theories'. I conclude that the risk of phosphorous depletion to global food security are minimal. *** ‘Peak phosphorous’ is one of the more popular ‘peak resource’ theories, along with ‘peak oil’.[1] Phosphorous is essential for food production, and has no substitutes.
Social Impact Heroes: Why & How Dr. Shermin de Silva of ‘Trunks & Leaves’ Decided To Change Our World
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path? As a child growing up in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, I was an urban kid surrounded by buildings. But there was nothing I loved more than watching wildlife documentaries on TV and I was just fascinated by the natural world. When I discovered dinosaurs, I decided (like many other kids) that I just had to become a paleontologist.
EGO-Paganism and the Tyranny of Structurelessness
[Note: Anything I write on this blog represents the views of just one person and is not representative of the group that drafted the Statement, nor is it representative of the over 6,500 people who have signed the Statement. A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment is far, far bigger than me. It belongs to all those who have signed it.
Growth and the case against randomista development
Listen to the audio version of this article (text-to-speech software) Update, 3/8/2021: I (Hauke) gave a talk at Effective Altruism Global on this post: Randomista development (RD) is a form of development economics which evaluates and promotes interventions that can be tested by randomised controlled trials (RCTs). It is exemplified by GiveWell (which primarily works in health) and the randomista movement in economics (which primarily works in economic development).
First-Party vs. Third-Party Claims: What's the Difference?
“I hear the terms ‘first-party claim’ and ‘third-party claim’ all the time. What do they mean?“ First, let me say that I am not an attorney and therefore cannot provide legal counsel. The information I will provide in this column is simply based on my knowledge, training and experience in the insurance and collision repair industries. If you need legal counsel, you should seek a legal professional licensed to practice law in your area.
The Reality of PBE Value-Added Services
This article is the last in a five-part series focused on how collision centers can benefit by working more closely with their PBE distributor to meet the demands of consumers and insurers. And, how distributors will benefit by more effectively responding to the needs of their collision customers. In the previous articles in this series, I suggested that collision centers and PBE distributors should work together to improve both shop and distributor processes.
Why I Stopped Protesting and Started a Garden
“Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks.” — Ian Hamilton Finlay I quit protesting and started a garden. It sounds absurd at first, I know. But bear with me. I first woke up to the threat of climate change in 2014 (I was a late bloomer), when 350.org was organizing the first People’s Climate March in New York City. Around that time, I started writing about environmental issues and then joining—and later organizing—protests. It was exhilarating. It felt empowering.
Why Inventory Fulfillment is Job. 1 for a PBE Distributor
This article is the second in a series focused on how collision centers can benefit by working more closely with their PBE distributor to meet the demands of consumers and insurers. And, how distributors will benefit by more effectively responding to the needs of their collision customers.
OE Certification
A person is driving down the road in their vehicle. Then, it happens: another driver pulls out – and the contact between the vehicles is a sound most people never forget. Because of design and safety features that have been improved by vehicle manufacturers over the years, nobody is injured. However, crashes are still traumatic experiences. Many thoughts race through the mind of consumers: insurance issues, time, how will I get to work? What’s my spouse going to say? What’s my dad going to say?
What Makes a Good PBE Distributor?
This article is the first in a series focused on how collision centers can benefit by working more closely with their PBE distributor to meet the demands of consumers and insurers. And, how distributors will benefit by more effectively responding to the needs of their collision customers. PBE distributors must change. Having the best products, people and service is not enough.
Climate Change Is, In General, Not An Existential Risk
[Everything in this post is true to the best of my knowledge, but I am not a climatologist and my last science class was in high school. It is very likely I have misunderstood something. I welcome corrections.
“Die Early and Often”: Being Attis in the Anthropocene
“We are not going to be saved.” From John Halstead “The Awakening” by J. Seward Johnson, Jr. (National Harbor, Maryland) In yesterday’s post, “‘What If It’s Already Too Late?’: Being an Activist in the Anthropocene”, I faced the fact that we are … well, f**ked. Our civilization is rushing toward its inevitable end. And it’s going to take out a big part of the biosphere with it. Cap and trade is not going to save us. Renewable energy is not going to save us. Nuclear energy is not going to save us.
“What If It’s Already Too Late?”: Being an Activist in the Anthropocene
“We’re f**ked. Now what?” From John Halstead I had a terrible thought recently … “What if it’s already too late?” Actually, this idea has been haunting me, hovering on the boundary between my conscious and unconscious mind, for some time. In 2016, Bill McKibben, founder of the climate activist organization 350.org, came to speak at a rally at the BP tar sands refinery in my “backyard” in the highly industrialized northwest corner Indiana.
Quando você diz que 'todas as vidas importam' você nega a existência do racismo
Queridas pessoas brancas como eu, vamos bater um papo honesto sobre o porquê de dizermos que "All Lives Matter" ("Todas as Vidas Têm Importância") quando falamos de racismo. Para começar, vale observar que ninguém dizia que "todas as vidas têm importância" até as pessoas começarem a dizer que "Black Lives Matter" ("Vidas Negras Têm Importância"). Portanto, "todas as vidas têm importância" é uma resposta a "vidas negras têm importância".
The Real Reason White People Say ‘All Lives Matter’
Dear fellow white people, let’s have an honest talk about why we say “All Lives Matter.” First of all, notice that no one was saying “All Lives Matter” before people started saying “Black Lives Matter.” So “All Lives Matter” is a response to “Black Lives Matter.” Apparently, something about the statement “Black Lives Matter” makes us uncomfortable. Why is that? Now some white people might say that singling out Black people’s lives as mattering somehow means that white lives don’t matter.
Does climate change deserve more attention within EA?
I have been an 80,000 Hours Podcast listener and active in EA for about eighteen months, and I have shifted from a focus on climate change, to animal welfare, and now to x-risk and s-risk, which seem to be highly promising from an EA perspective. Along the way, I wonder if some parts of EA might have underplayed climate change, and if more engagement and content on the topic could be valuable.
A Pagan Lawyer’s Take on Indiana’s “Religious Right to Discriminate Law”
“Indiana Just Made It Easier to Discriminate Against Gay People—And Just About Anyone Else” read yesterday’s headline on Mother Jones’ website. Indiana’s Republican Governor, Mike Pence, signed a bill (SB 101) into law yesterday, the so -called “Religious Freedom Restoration Act”, which protects business owners who refuse service to LGBT customers on religious grounds.
Fruits of the Deep Ecology Tree: Wilderness and Rewilding
Neo-Paganism is a nature religion which, like other nature religions, perceives nature as both sacred and interconnected. From this perspective, humans in the developed world have become tragically disconnected from nature, which has been desacralized in both thought and deed. Healing this rift is possible only through a profound shift in our collective consciousness. This constellation of ideas can be called “Deep Ecology”.
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