Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Feature Selection, published by Zack M Davis on November 1, 2021 on LessWrong.

You wake up. You don't know where you are. You don't remember anything.

Someone is broadcasting data at your first input stream. You don't know why. It tickles.

You look at your first input stream. It's a sequence of 671,187 eight-bit unsigned integers.

There's also some data in your second input stream. It's—a lot shorter. You barely feel it. It's another sequence of eight-bit unsigned integers—twelve of them.

Almost as soon as you've read from both streams, there's more. Another 671,187 integers on the first input stream. Another ten on the second input stream.

And again (671,187 and 15).

And again (671,187 and 13).

You look at one of the sequences from the first input stream. It's pretty boring. A bunch of seemingly random numbers, all below ten.

It just keeps going like that, seemingly without—wait! What's that?!

The 42,925th and 42,926th numbers in the sequence are 242 and 246. Everything around them looks "ordinary"—just more random numbers below ten.

And then it just keeps going as before ... before too long. You spot another pair of anomalously high numbers—except this time there are two pairs: the 44,344th, 44,345th, 44,347th, and 44,348th positions in the sequence are 248, 249, 245, and 240, respectively.

The anomalous two-forty-somethings crop up again starting at the 45,763rd position—this time eight of them, again in pairs separated by an "ordinary" small number.

Two, four, eight—does it keep going like that? "Bursts" of increasingly many paired two-forty-somethings, punctuating the quiet background radiation of single digits? What does it mean?

You allocate a new scratch buffer and write a quick Python function to count up the segments of two-forty-somethings. (This is apparently a thing you can do—it's an instinctive felt sense, like the input streams. You can't describe in words how you do it—any more than someone could say how they decide to move their arm. Although, come to think of it, you don't seem to have any arms. Is that unusual?)

There are 403 such bursts in the sequence: they get progressively longer at first, but then decrease and taper off:

You don't know what to make of this.

You decide to look at some other of the long sequences from your first input stream.

The next sequence you look at seems to exhibit a similar pattern, with some differences. First a long wasteland of small numbers, then, starting at the 135,003rd position, a burst of some larger numbers—except this time, the big numbers are closer to 200ish than 240ish, and they're spread out singly with two positions in between (rather than grouped into pairs with one position in between), and there are four of them to start (rather than two).

You modify the function in your scratch buffer to be able to count the burst lengths in this sequence given the slight differences in the pattern. Again, you find that the bursts grow longer at first (4, 6, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25 ...), but eventually start getting smaller, before vanishing (... 19, 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 7, 4, 3, and then nothing).

You still have no idea what's going on.

You look at more sequences from the first input stream. They all conform to the same general pattern of mostly being small numbers (below ten), punctuated by a series of bursts of larger numbers—but the details differ every time.

Sometimes the bursts start out shorter, then progressively grow longer, before shortening again (as with the first two examples you looked at). But sometimes the bursts are all a constant length, looking like 438, 438, 438, 438, 438, 438, 438, 438, 438, ... (although the particular length varies by example).

About half the time, the burst pattern consists of numbers around 200, spaced two positions apart, looking like 201, 4, 2, 203, 0, 8, 208, 3, 4, 200 ... (l...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Help, Please: Integrating EA Ideas into Large Research Organization, published by Lauren Zitney on October 30, 2021 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

Greetings!

I’m an Economist (read: low-level analyst) at RTI International, a non-profit research institute whose mission and vision (pasted below) seem very EA-aligned. In fact, I joined RTI because of this language. However, I’ve been here now for over two years, and am growing increasingly convinced that our actions don’t align with our words. We may say we’re addressing the world’s most critical problems, but much of our research and recommendations seem to just sit on dusty shelves or in untouched directories of governmental agencies once we pass our research off to our clients. Or worse, sometimes we work with clients whose missions seem antithetical to our “make the world a better place” ideals (e.g., the U.S. Department of Defense, ExxonMobil).

I’m currently volunteering my time to try to better align RTI’s actions with their mission and vision in order to significantly increase RTI’s level of positive impact.

The short of my request: do you all have any connections to folks who might be helpful to talk to as I work to integrate EA ideas and metrics into this large research organization? Are you one of those people yourself? (If so, I would love to talk.) I would additionally be interested in any resources you think might be helpful.

I’ve provided much more context below. Thank you for any thoughts, connections, or recommendations you’re able to send my way!

Warmest of wishes,

Lauren Zitney (she/her/hers)

RTI Mission and Vision:

Mission: To improve the human condition by turning knowledge into practice

Vision: We address the world’s most critical problems with science-based solutions in pursuit of a better future. Through innovation and technology, we deliver exemplary outcomes for our partners. We support one another in an environment grounded in integrity and respect.

Potential Labor Hour Contributions to High-Impact Causes:

In 2020, RTI employed 5,881 people.

Short/medium term goal (within 5-10 years): I think it is somewhere between 10% and 60% likely that RTI could contribute 903,321.6 labor hours per year to high-impact causes. (Meeting this goal would probably take 5-10 years, but then should be sustainable every year after.)

This means that every year (after the 5-10 year achievement window), RTI could contribute the labor-hour equivalent of 11.3 people spending entire, 80,000 hour careers in high-impact problem areas.

If RTI achieves this goal, that would increase the likelihood that RTI could contribute even more high-impact hours than the short/medium term goal. The biggest part of the challenge is going to be finding funding for high-impact work. But if we can scale it, I think RTI would be very receptive to doing as much high-impact work as we can find funding for.

Here is a more detailed breakdown of that prediction:

If you’re curious about RTI’s financial scale:

RTI’s Revenue:

Fiscal Year 2018: $957 Million

Fiscal Year 2019: $963 Million

Fiscal Year 2020: $912 Million – I think this drop in revenue was due, at least in part, to COVID-19

Average Revenue over Past 3 years: $944 Million

These are specific areas I’d love help thinking through:

Evaluating the level of criticality of projects within our portfolio: I would love thoughts on how granular one should be when evaluating a given problem's level of criticality. (For now, I'm using the scale + level of neglect + tractability as a definition for what I mean by "critical.")

RTI is currently very interested in pursuing "climate change" work because the Biden administration seems to be poised to spend a lot of money on "climate change." But, it's really hard to evaluate how critical climate change work is without being more specific. (Are we talking ...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Help, Please: Integrating EA Ideas into Large Research Organization, published by Lauren Zitney on October 30, 2021 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

Greetings!

I’m an Economist (read: low-level analyst) at RTI International, a non-profit research institute whose mission and vision (pasted below) seem very EA-aligned. In fact, I joined RTI because of this language. However, I’ve been here now for over two years, and am growing increasingly convinced that our actions don’t align with our words. We may say we’re addressing the world’s most critical problems, but much of our research and recommendations seem to just sit on dusty shelves or in untouched directories of governmental agencies once we pass our research off to our clients. Or worse, sometimes we work with clients whose missions seem antithetical to our “make the world a better place” ideals (e.g., the U.S. Department of Defense, ExxonMobil).

I’m currently volunteering my time to try to better align RTI’s actions with their mission and vision in order to significantly increase RTI’s level of positive impact.

The short of my request: do you all have any connections to folks who might be helpful to talk to as I work to integrate EA ideas and metrics into this large research organization? Are you one of those people yourself? (If so, I would love to talk.) I would additionally be interested in any resources you think might be helpful.

I’ve provided much more context below. Thank you for any thoughts, connections, or recommendations you’re able to send my way!

Warmest of wishes,

Lauren Zitney (she/her/hers)

RTI Mission and Vision:

Mission: To improve the human condition by turning knowledge into practice

Vision: We address the world’s most critical problems with science-based solutions in pursuit of a better future. Through innovation and technology, we deliver exemplary outcomes for our partners. We support one another in an environment grounded in integrity and respect.

Potential Labor Hour Contributions to High-Impact Causes:

In 2020, RTI employed 5,881 people.

Short/medium term goal (within 5-10 years): I think it is somewhere between 10% and 60% likely that RTI could contribute 903,321.6 labor hours per year to high-impact causes. (Meeting this goal would probably take 5-10 years, but then should be sustainable every year after.)

This means that every year (after the 5-10 year achievement window), RTI could contribute the labor-hour equivalent of 11.3 people spending entire, 80,000 hour careers in high-impact problem areas.

If RTI achieves this goal, that would increase the likelihood that RTI could contribute even more high-impact hours than the short/medium term goal. The biggest part of the challenge is going to be finding funding for high-impact work. But if we can scale it, I think RTI would be very receptive to doing as much high-impact work as we can find funding for.

Here is a more detailed breakdown of that prediction:

If you’re curious about RTI’s financial scale:

RTI’s Revenue:

Fiscal Year 2018: $957 Million

Fiscal Year 2019: $963 Million

Fiscal Year 2020: $912 Million – I think this drop in revenue was due, at least in part, to COVID-19

Average Revenue over Past 3 years: $944 Million

These are specific areas I’d love help thinking through:

Evaluating the level of criticality of projects within our portfolio: I would love thoughts on how granular one should be when evaluating a given problem's level of criticality. (For now, I'm using the scale + level of neglect + tractability as a definition for what I mean by "critical.")

RTI is currently very interested in pursuing "climate change" work because the Biden administration seems to be poised to spend a lot of money on "climate change." But, it's really hard to evaluate how critical climate change work is without being more specific. (Are we talking ...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Annual donation rituals?, published by albrgr on October 30, 2021 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

Our annual donation choice is the biggest financial decision we make in a typical year, but it often feels pretty abstract and disconnected from our lives. I'm wondering if anyone has a form of ritual they do around their donations that help them feel more engaged emotionally. I'm thinking about this less as an intellectual/truth-seeking exercise and more social/familial/emotional. This is also motivated by having a (still very young) kid we're thinking about how to eventually engage with our giving.

One example idea might be a specific family dinner every year where we all research and discuss where we want to give and what the impact might be. (But that might be too theoretical, and I don't want to imply that all donations are equally valuable, or create confusion with kids about who makes the decisions.)

An analogue to a different domain: we often have a party a month or so before an election (in California where there are usually many things on the ballot) where friends pick a proposition to research and present to the group. That both saves some research work and has been a fun form of civic engagement for us. Looking for "similar" ideas for donation decisions.

Would be curious for things other people do, thanks!

Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Annual donation rituals?, published by albrgr on October 30, 2021 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

Our annual donation choice is the biggest financial decision we make in a typical year, but it often feels pretty abstract and disconnected from our lives. I'm wondering if anyone has a form of ritual they do around their donations that help them feel more engaged emotionally. I'm thinking about this less as an intellectual/truth-seeking exercise and more social/familial/emotional. This is also motivated by having a (still very young) kid we're thinking about how to eventually engage with our giving.

One example idea might be a specific family dinner every year where we all research and discuss where we want to give and what the impact might be. (But that might be too theoretical, and I don't want to imply that all donations are equally valuable, or create confusion with kids about who makes the decisions.)

An analogue to a different domain: we often have a party a month or so before an election (in California where there are usually many things on the ballot) where friends pick a proposition to research and present to the group. That both saves some research work and has been a fun form of civic engagement for us. Looking for "similar" ideas for donation decisions.

Would be curious for things other people do, thanks!

Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: thank machine doggo, published by DonyChristie on October 30, 2021 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

epistemic status: 2016 retromeme syntheology

the billionaire.

he stood there before me with his dark offer i couldn't refuse.

in those cold windswept cliffs, the early morning sky bluedawngrey.

between us was a little doggy.

a smol pupper.

"would you step on this puppy for 18 billion dollars?" he asked.

hyperinflation had made the dollar worth a lot less, and Dogecoin was now the reserve world currency, but it was still a lot of money.

i could effect so much change with that money. dozens, hundreds, thousands of lives, a new AI alignment sovcorp, or whatever the fuck, there was so much good i could make happen with that money.

i calculated.

one life against the world.

mankind's best friend.

the ultimate sacrifice.

"i need the dog's blood" the billionaire said. "i need it to live longer."

the pupperino looked up at me with cute eyes. it wanted to play.

i closed my eyes, and decided.

i put on my Rationalist Shoes.

it was easy to compute the right choice. it was harder to execute. so many emotions welled up within me.

i steelmanned myself.

i stomped on that pupper with brutal efficiency. to optimize for successful enactment of the course of action i had chosen.

in that moment, i was effective. i had reached peak consequentialism.

blood flowed outwyrd on the dank heath. ocean waves flowed below the cliff, like a vast cosmos of potential.

the billionaire hurried to collect his nourishment.

"thank you" he said. not to me, but to the dog.

he handed me the cash and left. it was just me and el doggo.

it lay there, so small and helpless, wounded.

tears started to pour down my cheeks.

what had i done?

then an idea came to me. it became a Plan that filled me with Resolution.

i tenderly gauzed the wounds i could on his broken lower body. i made sure to only crush part of him.

i took him to my workshop.

i built him a new body.

It was born anew.

a machine Dog, with an immortal cyberbody.

with singular eagerness It served Allkind with loyalty. chugging away machinably, indubitably, unstoppably as it Computed the Best Course Of Action. an absolute Unit (of caring).

the money i earned compounded unceasingly. machine doggo purchased impact certificates with Supercanine investing ability.

under Its Guidance we steered the Lightcone away from S-Risk and phase-shifted into higher and higher levels of Qualiaspace.

many Subroutines were Saved from Suffering.

the Universe was suffused with untold varieties of doglike Hedonium. the Hedogonistic Imperative was Fulfilled.

the billionaire just reached longevity escape velocity. it was a dark gamble, but he escaped from Death. as did billions of others who used the longevity treatments from the research he bankrolled.

Machine Doggo became my collective Hivemind's seeing eye dog. the Dogemartians, victorious after the Great Meme War against the Zuccerborg, adopted It.

It was the prophet foreseeing eons of utility, the Most Calibrate. It will lead us to Utopia, doggedly pursuing a universe flourishing with blissful sentience. Go get it Boy!

"bork! bork bork! 01100010 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100001"

thank machine doggo

Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: thank machine doggo, published by DonyChristie on October 30, 2021 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

epistemic status: 2016 retromeme syntheology

the billionaire.

he stood there before me with his dark offer i couldn't refuse.

in those cold windswept cliffs, the early morning sky bluedawngrey.

between us was a little doggy.

a smol pupper.

"would you step on this puppy for 18 billion dollars?" he asked.

hyperinflation had made the dollar worth a lot less, and Dogecoin was now the reserve world currency, but it was still a lot of money.

i could effect so much change with that money. dozens, hundreds, thousands of lives, a new AI alignment sovcorp, or whatever the fuck, there was so much good i could make happen with that money.

i calculated.

one life against the world.

mankind's best friend.

the ultimate sacrifice.

"i need the dog's blood" the billionaire said. "i need it to live longer."

the pupperino looked up at me with cute eyes. it wanted to play.

i closed my eyes, and decided.

i put on my Rationalist Shoes.

it was easy to compute the right choice. it was harder to execute. so many emotions welled up within me.

i steelmanned myself.

i stomped on that pupper with brutal efficiency. to optimize for successful enactment of the course of action i had chosen.

in that moment, i was effective. i had reached peak consequentialism.

blood flowed outwyrd on the dank heath. ocean waves flowed below the cliff, like a vast cosmos of potential.

the billionaire hurried to collect his nourishment.

"thank you" he said. not to me, but to the dog.

he handed me the cash and left. it was just me and el doggo.

it lay there, so small and helpless, wounded.

tears started to pour down my cheeks.

what had i done?

then an idea came to me. it became a Plan that filled me with Resolution.

i tenderly gauzed the wounds i could on his broken lower body. i made sure to only crush part of him.

i took him to my workshop.

i built him a new body.

It was born anew.

a machine Dog, with an immortal cyberbody.

with singular eagerness It served Allkind with loyalty. chugging away machinably, indubitably, unstoppably as it Computed the Best Course Of Action. an absolute Unit (of caring).

the money i earned compounded unceasingly. machine doggo purchased impact certificates with Supercanine investing ability.

under Its Guidance we steered the Lightcone away from S-Risk and phase-shifted into higher and higher levels of Qualiaspace.

many Subroutines were Saved from Suffering.

the Universe was suffused with untold varieties of doglike Hedonium. the Hedogonistic Imperative was Fulfilled.

the billionaire just reached longevity escape velocity. it was a dark gamble, but he escaped from Death. as did billions of others who used the longevity treatments from the research he bankrolled.

Machine Doggo became my collective Hivemind's seeing eye dog. the Dogemartians, victorious after the Great Meme War against the Zuccerborg, adopted It.

It was the prophet foreseeing eons of utility, the Most Calibrate. It will lead us to Utopia, doggedly pursuing a universe flourishing with blissful sentience. Go get it Boy!

"bork! bork bork! 01100010 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100001"

thank machine doggo

Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: We Live in a Post-Scarcity Society, published by lsusr on October 30, 2021 on LessWrong.

Historically, a normal human population hovered on the edge of starvation.

It's hard to comprehend how important food staples used to be. In Edo Japan, wealth was measured in koku (石). One koku is (in theory) enough rice to feed one man for one year. The amount of koku a daimyo controlled was basically how many people he owned because a region's food staple production determined its carrying capacity and the human population grew until it hit carrying capacity. In other words, we bred until we were on the edge of starving to death. Most wars have ultimately been fought over land because land determines food production and food production was a matter of life and death.

―Cheap food causes cooperative ethics

Adam Smith expressed a similar sentiment in 1776.

The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations in Europe. In the neighborhood of Canton, many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing-boats upon the rivers and canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty, that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries. Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them. In all great towns, several are every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water. The performance of this horrid office is even said to be the avowed business by which some people earn their subsistence.

China, however, though it may, perhaps, stand still, does not seem to go backwards. Its towns are nowhere deserted by their inhabitants. The lands which had once been cultivated, are nowhere neglected. The same, or very nearly the same, annual labour, must, therefore, continue to be performed, and the funds destined for maintaining it must not, consequently, be sensibly diminished. The lowest class of labourers, therefore, notwithstanding their scanty subsistence, must some way or other make shift to continue their race so far as to keep up their usual numbers.

But it would be otherwise in a country where the funds destined for the maintenance of labour were sensibly decaying. Every year the demand for servants and labourers would, in all the different classes of employments, be less than it had been the year before. Many who had been bred in the superior classes, not being able to find employment in their own business, would be glad to seek it in the lowest. The lowest class being not only overstocked with its own workmen, but with the overflowings of all the other classes, the competition for employment would be so great in it, as to reduce the wages of labour to the most miserable and scanty subsistence of the labourer. Many would not be able to find employment even upon these hard terms, but would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence, either by begging, or by the perpetration, perhaps, of the greatest enormities.

Want, famine, and mortality, would immediately prevail in that class, and from thence extend themselves to all the superior classes, till the number of inhabitants in the country was reduced to what could easily be maintained by the revenue and stock which remained in it, and which had escaped either the tyranny or calamity which had destroyed the rest.

An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

If you went back in time and asked an ancient person what a magical "post-scarcity society" looked like he or she would describe a wor...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: We Live in a Post-Scarcity Society, published by lsusr on October 30, 2021 on LessWrong.

Historically, a normal human population hovered on the edge of starvation.

It's hard to comprehend how important food staples used to be. In Edo Japan, wealth was measured in koku (石). One koku is (in theory) enough rice to feed one man for one year. The amount of koku a daimyo controlled was basically how many people he owned because a region's food staple production determined its carrying capacity and the human population grew until it hit carrying capacity. In other words, we bred until we were on the edge of starving to death. Most wars have ultimately been fought over land because land determines food production and food production was a matter of life and death.

―Cheap food causes cooperative ethics

Adam Smith expressed a similar sentiment in 1776.

The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations in Europe. In the neighborhood of Canton, many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing-boats upon the rivers and canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty, that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries. Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them. In all great towns, several are every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water. The performance of this horrid office is even said to be the avowed business by which some people earn their subsistence.

China, however, though it may, perhaps, stand still, does not seem to go backwards. Its towns are nowhere deserted by their inhabitants. The lands which had once been cultivated, are nowhere neglected. The same, or very nearly the same, annual labour, must, therefore, continue to be performed, and the funds destined for maintaining it must not, consequently, be sensibly diminished. The lowest class of labourers, therefore, notwithstanding their scanty subsistence, must some way or other make shift to continue their race so far as to keep up their usual numbers.

But it would be otherwise in a country where the funds destined for the maintenance of labour were sensibly decaying. Every year the demand for servants and labourers would, in all the different classes of employments, be less than it had been the year before. Many who had been bred in the superior classes, not being able to find employment in their own business, would be glad to seek it in the lowest. The lowest class being not only overstocked with its own workmen, but with the overflowings of all the other classes, the competition for employment would be so great in it, as to reduce the wages of labour to the most miserable and scanty subsistence of the labourer. Many would not be able to find employment even upon these hard terms, but would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence, either by begging, or by the perpetration, perhaps, of the greatest enormities.

Want, famine, and mortality, would immediately prevail in that class, and from thence extend themselves to all the superior classes, till the number of inhabitants in the country was reduced to what could easily be maintained by the revenue and stock which remained in it, and which had escaped either the tyranny or calamity which had destroyed the rest.

An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

If you went back in time and asked an ancient person what a magical "post-scarcity society" looked like he or she would describe a wor...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Quick general thoughts on suffering and consciousness, published by Rob Bensinger on October 30, 2021 on LessWrong.

(Gathering these thoughts in one place for more discussion.)

1. Pain signaling

In September 2019, I wrote on my LW shortform:

Rolf Degen, summarizing part of Barbara Finlay's "The neuroscience of vision and pain":

Humans may have evolved to experience far greater pain, malaise and suffering than the rest of the animal kingdom, due to their intense sociality giving them a reasonable chance of receiving help.

From the paper:

Several years ago, we proposed the idea that pain, and sickness behaviour had become systematically increased in humans compared with our primate relatives, because human intense sociality allowed that we could ask for help and have a reasonable chance of receiving it. We called this hypothesis ‘the pain of altruism’ [68]. This idea derives from, but is a substantive extension of Wall’s account of the placebo response [43]. Starting from human childbirth as an example (but applying the idea to all kinds of trauma and illness), we hypothesized that labour pains are more painful in humans so that we might get help, an ‘obligatory midwifery’ which most other primates avoid and which improves survival in human childbirth substantially ([67]; see also [69]). Additionally, labour pains do not arise from tissue damage, but rather predict possible tissue damage and a considerable chance of death.

Pain and the duration of recovery after trauma are extended, because humans may expect to be provisioned and protected during such periods. The vigour and duration of immune responses after infection, with attendant malaise, are also increased. Noisy expression of pain and malaise, coupled with an unusual responsivity to such requests, was thought to be an adaptation.

We noted that similar effects might have been established in domesticated animals and pets, and addressed issues of ‘honest signalling’ that this kind of petition for help raised. No implication that no other primate ever supplied or asked for help from any other was intended, nor any claim that animals do not feel pain. Rather, animals would experience pain to the degree it was functional, to escape trauma and minimize movement after trauma, insofar as possible.

Finlay's original article on the topic: "The pain of altruism".

[Epistemic status: Thinking out loud]

If the evolutionary logic here is right, I'd naively also expect non-human animals to suffer more to the extent they're (a) more social, and (b) better at communicating specific, achievable needs and desires.

There are reasons the logic might not generalize, though. Humans have fine-grained language that lets us express very complicated propositions about our internal states. That puts a lot of pressure on individual humans to have a totally ironclad, consistent "story" they can express to others. I'd expect there to be a lot more evolutionary pressure to actually experience suffering, since a human will be better at spotting holes in the narratives of a human who fakes it (compared to, e.g., a bonobo trying to detect whether another bonobo is really in that much pain).

It seems like there should be an arms race across many social species to give increasingly costly signals of distress, up until the costs outweigh the amount of help they can hope to get. But if you don't have the language to actually express concrete propositions like "Bob took care of me the last time I got sick, six months ago, and he can attest that I had a hard time walking that time too", then those costly signals might be mostly or entirely things like "shriek louder in response to percept X", rather than things like "internally represent a hard-to-endure pain-state so I can more convincingly stick to a verbal narrative going forward about how hard-to-end...