Published on October 13, 2021

Audience: I expect this to be helpful for anyone thinking of running a similar survey, and probably not interesting for anyone else.

We ran a survey of prominent AI safety and governance researchers which aimed to identify which AI existential risk scenarios those researchers find most likely. We learned several lessons that I expect to generalise to surveys with a similar audience or aims (e.g. surveys aiming to understand researchers' views in some field, or to test hypotheses about EAs' beliefs on certain issues, etc.). I've had several conversations where I've repeated these same lessons, so I figured I'd write them up quickly.

"Walkthroughs" are a good way to improve the questions

Before launching the survey, we iterated on the questions via a series of about 10 "walkthroughs". Each "walkthrough" involved being on a call with someone (a "tester") who would complete the survey, while verbalising their thought process and any thoughts that came to mind on what was confusing/could be improved, and so on. We did this until the survey design started to stabilise, i.e. the testers were basically happy.

Compared to asking testers to complete the survey in their own time and email us with feedback, this generated much richer and more helpful information. It was also lower effort for the testers (no need to write up their thoughts afterward). It’s also likely that people forget some of their feedback by the end, so it’s better to collect it as they go along.

The most helpful testers were those who we would want in the survey population, which (for our small population) posed a limitation on the number of tests we could do, so using tests wisely is important.

Testers are good at identifying flaws, but bad at proposing improvements

During these walkthroughs, testers reported things they didn't like about the current design, and sometimes suggested improvements to fix those flaws. Whilst the flaws that testers identified robustly pointed to areas that could be improved, more often than not, testers' suggestions on how to address the flaws weren't that helpful. In particular, several times we had the experience of making a change that one tester suggested, only for the next tester to suggest reverting to the previous design. (If you're interested: whether to make the AI risk scenarios mutually exclusive.) So, we found that suggested improvements should be taken as evidence that something was bad about the current design, and less as evidence that the particular change they suggest will actually make the survey better.

I'm told that this mirrors common wisdom in UI/UX design: that beta testers are good at spotting areas for improvement, but bad (or overconfident) at suggesting concrete changes.

Include relatively more "free-form" questions, or do interviews instead of a survey

Regarding the type of survey questions, there is a spectrum from "free-form" to "specific". Here are examples of questions on either end of the spectrum:

Very free-form: "Assume an existential catastrophe due to AI has occurred. What do you expect to have been the major causes and why?"

Very specific: "What is your estimate of the probability that an AI takeover scenario will occur?"

Specific questions ask for a response to some precise question, whereas free-form questions just prompt the respondent for their reactions to some vaguer question.

In our survey, most questions were very specific and asked for probability estimates. We expected this would make the analysis easier, because we could simply report summary statistics of these estimates, rather than having to synthesise and draw conclusions from a range of qualitative answers (which tend to be confusing because survey participants always write quickly!).

However, in hindsight this wasn’t clearly the best choice, because asking specific questions requires a level of conceptual precision that wasn't available for many of our questions.

By conceptual precision, I mean that th...

Published on October 14, 2021

Over this last week, I and several other folk from CFAR's past gathered. We were doing a kind of post-mortem on the last decade.

I mostly haven't thought explicitly about Less Wrong style rationality for the last three years. It would come up in conversation every now and again, and I engaged with the "best of 2018" review process for a couple of my posts. But it just isn't where I've been focusing anymore.

This week of immersion and reflection stirred some old circuitry in me. It was beautiful and fascinating to witness how who I am today dances with old ways of thinking and being from my CFAR days.

As I left that event, I noticed I could clearly feel an ember glowing in me. I remembered the Beisutsukai, and the sense that more is possible.

I also remembered the well-worn ache of repeated failure and defeat from trying to create these things, and the endless intellectual conversations that turned out to go nowhere as we struggled to birth any hint of the full Art.

But I've learned something these last three years about how to navigate that kind of failure, and how to deeply honor the true essence of an inspiration.

So I find myself in the amusing position of feeling how someone might actually create truly good rationality training. It's amusing because I doubt this is my gift to give the world. I'm doing something closely related, but different. Far too mystical for the right aesthetic.

I'd like to attempt a translation. Partly for myself, because writing out these things brings me clarity. But partly as an invitation for the souls here who can feel the call and might do something with it.

I think the world would be more beautiful, and more fun, with real Beisutsukai.

Some Possible Ingredients of the Art

Embodying the Void

The first concept I'll point at here is noise. Not in the information-theoretic sense (i.e., the opposite of signal). More in the sense of how it's hard to be calm and composed in a loud environment, especially after you've been startled. The way the emotional noise of living with an abusive partner can make it hard to notice what's going on and decide to leave. The way the feeling of alarm from outrage porn crowds out clear thinking and perception in favor of fueling the inner mental fire. The way noisy thoughts about already knowing the answer make it hard to really listen to the words and concepts someone else is saying.

Most tools for thinking more clearly add noise. They're often useful noise, like "Oh, I'm giving a time estimate, which might be subject to the planning fallacy." But they're still adding inner sensation. Instead of inner silence, there's yet another thought.

What's needed here, as a foundational practice, is an art of removing inner sensation. The ability to come to inner silence at will.

(I know I'm wording that strongly. "What's needed here," etc. I mean it that strongly because it's something I'm crystal clear on. But I also want to acknowledge an asymmetry of information here. I'm mostly going to keep ignoring that fact and continue to speak plainly throughout this post. I don't mean for my confidence to pressure you beyond your epistemic comfort. But I'm also not going to pretend I know less than I do.)

This is an awful lot like clearing a workbench. Sure, you can stack your next project on top of the chunks of wood and oils and notes and wires scattered across your table.

.or you could take some time to clean everything up. It's often surprising how much ease and functionality comes from having way more table room than you need. It's easier to breathe.

The main difference is empty space. The Void. There's a richness of nothingness that you can fill with physical "noise" (i.e., things) but you haven't yet. It's this free potential that brings ease.

The same thing happens in a mind. I find it hard to see what's going on in me when everything is loud inside and thoughts are slamming into one another and creating turbulence while other thoughts are run...

Published on October 14, 2021

Over this last week, I and several other folk from CFAR's past gathered. We were doing a kind of post-mortem on the last decade.

I mostly haven't thought explicitly about Less Wrong style rationality for the last three years. It would come up in conversation every now and again, and I engaged with the "best of 2018" review process for a couple of my posts. But it just isn't where I've been focusing anymore.

This week of immersion and reflection stirred some old circuitry in me. It was beautiful and fascinating to witness how who I am today dances with old ways of thinking and being from my CFAR days.

As I left that event, I noticed I could clearly feel an ember glowing in me. I remembered the Beisutsukai, and the sense that more is possible.

I also remembered the well-worn ache of repeated failure and defeat from trying to create these things, and the endless intellectual conversations that turned out to go nowhere as we struggled to birth any hint of the full Art.

But I've learned something these last three years about how to navigate that kind of failure, and how to deeply honor the true essence of an inspiration.

So I find myself in the amusing position of feeling how someone might actually create truly good rationality training. It's amusing because I doubt this is my gift to give the world. I'm doing something closely related, but different. Far too mystical for the right aesthetic.

I'd like to attempt a translation. Partly for myself, because writing out these things brings me clarity. But partly as an invitation for the souls here who can feel the call and might do something with it.

I think the world would be more beautiful, and more fun, with real Beisutsukai.

Some Possible Ingredients of the Art

Embodying the Void

The first concept I'll point at here is noise. Not in the information-theoretic sense (i.e., the opposite of signal). More in the sense of how it's hard to be calm and composed in a loud environment, especially after you've been startled. The way the emotional noise of living with an abusive partner can make it hard to notice what's going on and decide to leave. The way the feeling of alarm from outrage porn crowds out clear thinking and perception in favor of fueling the inner mental fire. The way noisy thoughts about already knowing the answer make it hard to really listen to the words and concepts someone else is saying.

Most tools for thinking more clearly add noise. They're often useful noise, like "Oh, I'm giving a time estimate, which might be subject to the planning fallacy." But they're still adding inner sensation. Instead of inner silence, there's yet another thought.

What's needed here, as a foundational practice, is an art of removing inner sensation. The ability to come to inner silence at will.

(I know I'm wording that strongly. "What's needed here," etc. I mean it that strongly because it's something I'm crystal clear on. But I also want to acknowledge an asymmetry of information here. I'm mostly going to keep ignoring that fact and continue to speak plainly throughout this post. I don't mean for my confidence to pressure you beyond your epistemic comfort. But I'm also not going to pretend I know less than I do.)

This is an awful lot like clearing a workbench. Sure, you can stack your next project on top of the chunks of wood and oils and notes and wires scattered across your table.

.or you could take some time to clean everything up. It's often surprising how much ease and functionality comes from having way more table room than you need. It's easier to breathe.

The main difference is empty space. The Void. There's a richness of nothingness that you can fill with physical "noise" (i.e., things) but you haven't yet. It's this free potential that brings ease.

The same thing happens in a mind. I find it hard to see what's going on in me when everything is loud inside and thoughts are slamming into one another and creating turbulence while other thoughts are run...

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.Published on October 14, 2021

We launched the Creative Writing Contest one month ago. I'm sharing:

A brief summary of how it's gone so far (including a new update, which is why I've changed the original publication date to 10/14)

A few updates that we hadn't announced yet

The stories so far

We've had 44 submissions (defined as "posts with the contest tag + recommendations on the submission thread + private submissions").

As a judge, I'm trying not to read anything until the judging process begins, and I've... almost succeeded. (I check r/rational more days than not, so the "see story, read story" instinct is powerful.)

But you, reader, are not bound by this limitation! I envy your ability to click the contest tag, find an interesting title, and dive in.

You could also be contrarian and look for the least interesting title. Maybe you'll find a hidden gem.

There's still time to submit!

You have until 11:59 pm PST on October 29th.

Submissions don't have to be long. I can easily imagine a 500-word entry (flash fiction, a well-done thought experiment...) winning a prize.

Updates on the contest

More prizes

Thanks to a generous donation from Owen Cotton-Barratt, we've increased the total prize amount from $10,000 to $22,000! More details here.

Private submissions

Several authors made the point that "publish your story on the Forum" is a steep requirement for someone who might want to sell that story somewhere else. So we opened the option to submit something privately, to be published only if you win.

Judges

At present, our judging panel consists of:

Kelsey Piper, writer at Future Perfect and The Unit of Caring

Alexander Wales, author of Worth the Candle and other EA-adjacent fiction

DaystarEld, author of Pokemon: The Origin of Species and host of the Rationally Writing podcast

Aaron Gertler, who mostly writes procedural Forum posts (but reads a lot)

One or two more people may join later.

We'll split submissions between the judges to keep the workload manageable. Each judge will recommend a few favorites to the rest, and we'll work out the final winners via discussion.

Feedback

This isn't really news, but it's a reminder: I offer feedback on Forum posts, including entries to this contest. I've already talked to a few people who wanted to know whether their work was a good fit, and I'd be happy to help you.

(If you end up submitting something I've seen, I'll make sure it goes to another judge.)

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.Published on October 14, 2021

We launched the Creative Writing Contest one month ago. I'm sharing:

A brief summary of how it's gone so far (including a new update, which is why I've changed the original publication date to 10/14)

A few updates that we hadn't announced yet

The stories so far

We've had 44 submissions (defined as "posts with the contest tag + recommendations on the submission thread + private submissions").

As a judge, I'm trying not to read anything until the judging process begins, and I've... almost succeeded. (I check r/rational more days than not, so the "see story, read story" instinct is powerful.)

But you, reader, are not bound by this limitation! I envy your ability to click the contest tag, find an interesting title, and dive in.

You could also be contrarian and look for the least interesting title. Maybe you'll find a hidden gem.

There's still time to submit!

You have until 11:59 pm PST on October 29th.

Submissions don't have to be long. I can easily imagine a 500-word entry (flash fiction, a well-done thought experiment...) winning a prize.

Updates on the contest

More prizes

Thanks to a generous donation from Owen Cotton-Barratt, we've increased the total prize amount from $10,000 to $22,000! More details here.

Private submissions

Several authors made the point that "publish your story on the Forum" is a steep requirement for someone who might want to sell that story somewhere else. So we opened the option to submit something privately, to be published only if you win.

Judges

At present, our judging panel consists of:

Kelsey Piper, writer at Future Perfect and The Unit of Caring

Alexander Wales, author of Worth the Candle and other EA-adjacent fiction

DaystarEld, author of Pokemon: The Origin of Species and host of the Rationally Writing podcast

Aaron Gertler, who mostly writes procedural Forum posts (but reads a lot)

One or two more people may join later.

We'll split submissions between the judges to keep the workload manageable. Each judge will recommend a few favorites to the rest, and we'll work out the final winners via discussion.

Feedback

This isn't really news, but it's a reminder: I offer feedback on Forum posts, including entries to this contest. I've already talked to a few people who wanted to know whether their work was a good fit, and I'd be happy to help you.

(If you end up submitting something I've seen, I'll make sure it goes to another judge.)

Published on October 13, 2021

By Mike Cassidy and Lara Mani

Ord 2020, and others have suggested that the existential risk posed by volcanoes is the largest of the potential ‘natural’ catastrophes - 100 times that of asteroids and comets combined. As volcanologists we wanted to delve a bit deeper into the x - risks and also global catastrophic risks from large explosive eruptions, adding insight from the latest volcano and climate science, including challenging some of the assumptions that have been put forward so far. Significant global impacts from large explosive eruptions will be described, which have a ~1 in 6 probability of occurring this century.

Introduction

I’m Mike and new to EA world, having just been introduced to it early this year from a friend in Oxford and having thoroughly enjoyed reading The Precipice, the super-eruption part sparked my interest. I’m a senior research fellow based in the earth science department at the University of Oxford, and specialise in volcano research. I research a range of different aspects in volcanology, but principally I aim to understand what influences the explosivity of eruptions and how best to forecast them. Lara works for the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge and has been thinking about extreme volcanic risk scenarios since joining the centre in January 2020. In particular, Lara has been exploring the systemic nature of volcanic risk from the view point of cascading and compound risks.

The idea of this post here is to provide some thoughts that might interest the EA community from a different perspective. I am also slowly catching up with the existential risk literature (this is partly time, but also because I wanted to provide a fresh insight initially without thoughts being diluted by later reading), so if you know literature that may be connected with some of the themes we cover, then please let us know. This really is the start of us thinking about this topic and as you’ll see there’s lots of uncertainty and we’d welcome some thoughts and questions about this generally to assess the gaps going forward.

Challenging assumptions and why we think the current risk may be underappreciated

The focus of impacts from large explosive eruptions has so far focussed on the initial cooling effect (which could be substantial), but the effects are far more varied than this, which we’ll discuss in later in this article and in our modern, connected world, perhaps means that we could more vulnerable to these. In this post we aim to challenge two notions that have been put forward in the existential risk community previously:

1) That the risk from volcanic eruptions is ‘natural’ and hasn’t changed/won’t change going forward

2) That humans have survived 2000 centuries therefore the natural risk must be low

The first assumption is challenged by recent studies which show that anthropogenic climate change increases the climatic cooling effect of large magnitude explosive eruptions (potentially by as much as 60%; Aubry, 2021 & Fasullo et al 2017); climate change itself also may increase the likelihood of triggering eruptions through glacial retreat and sea level change. Furthermore as we explore below, the more extreme climatic effects are not always attributed to the largest magnitude eruptions, in other words, you don’t need a ‘supereruption’ to cause global climatic impacts. All these factors, along with new ice core records showing large explosive eruptions are more common than values Ord 2020 used, mean that our current base rates for global catastrophic risk and existential risks might be higher than initially appreciated.

The 2nd assumption seems to be more based on human extinction, and negates the impact on civilisation collapse/failed potential part of the existential risk definition. Since human civilisation began (~10,000 years ago) a volcanic eruption of magnitude 8 or above has not occurred, and thus this possibility remains untested. (...

Published on October 13, 2021

By Mike Cassidy and Lara Mani

Ord 2020, and others have suggested that the existential risk posed by volcanoes is the largest of the potential ‘natural’ catastrophes - 100 times that of asteroids and comets combined. As volcanologists we wanted to delve a bit deeper into the x - risks and also global catastrophic risks from large explosive eruptions, adding insight from the latest volcano and climate science, including challenging some of the assumptions that have been put forward so far. Significant global impacts from large explosive eruptions will be described, which have a ~1 in 6 probability of occurring this century.

Introduction

I’m Mike and new to EA world, having just been introduced to it early this year from a friend in Oxford and having thoroughly enjoyed reading The Precipice, the super-eruption part sparked my interest. I’m a senior research fellow based in the earth science department at the University of Oxford, and specialise in volcano research. I research a range of different aspects in volcanology, but principally I aim to understand what influences the explosivity of eruptions and how best to forecast them. Lara works for the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge and has been thinking about extreme volcanic risk scenarios since joining the centre in January 2020. In particular, Lara has been exploring the systemic nature of volcanic risk from the view point of cascading and compound risks.

The idea of this post here is to provide some thoughts that might interest the EA community from a different perspective. I am also slowly catching up with the existential risk literature (this is partly time, but also because I wanted to provide a fresh insight initially without thoughts being diluted by later reading), so if you know literature that may be connected with some of the themes we cover, then please let us know. This really is the start of us thinking about this topic and as you’ll see there’s lots of uncertainty and we’d welcome some thoughts and questions about this generally to assess the gaps going forward.

Challenging assumptions and why we think the current risk may be underappreciated

The focus of impacts from large explosive eruptions has so far focussed on the initial cooling effect (which could be substantial), but the effects are far more varied than this, which we’ll discuss in later in this article and in our modern, connected world, perhaps means that we could more vulnerable to these. In this post we aim to challenge two notions that have been put forward in the existential risk community previously:

1) That the risk from volcanic eruptions is ‘natural’ and hasn’t changed/won’t change going forward

2) That humans have survived 2000 centuries therefore the natural risk must be low

The first assumption is challenged by recent studies which show that anthropogenic climate change increases the climatic cooling effect of large magnitude explosive eruptions (potentially by as much as 60%; Aubry, 2021 & Fasullo et al 2017); climate change itself also may increase the likelihood of triggering eruptions through glacial retreat and sea level change. Furthermore as we explore below, the more extreme climatic effects are not always attributed to the largest magnitude eruptions, in other words, you don’t need a ‘supereruption’ to cause global climatic impacts. All these factors, along with new ice core records showing large explosive eruptions are more common than values Ord 2020 used, mean that our current base rates for global catastrophic risk and existential risks might be higher than initially appreciated.

The 2nd assumption seems to be more based on human extinction, and negates the impact on civilisation collapse/failed potential part of the existential risk definition. Since human civilisation began (~10,000 years ago) a volcanic eruption of magnitude 8 or above has not occurred, and thus this possibility remains untested. (...

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.Published on October 13, 2021DiscussThanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Published on October 9, 2021

You may have heard of George Orwell as the man who presaged some of the sequences’ insights on rationality, especially as applied to the English language. You might have heard of Winston Churchill as a futurist who had surprisingly longtermist inclinations for someone of his time and background. Did you know they were also both pivotal figures in saving human civilisation from the lock-in of some highly undesirable values?

‘Churchill and Orwell: The fight for freedom’ is a morality tale about the virtue of self-correction. It’s a story of two anti-heroes who recognised an unprecedented danger that threatened all of humanity when no-one else would, and an exploration of why they were capable of this. It’s also fun, engagingly written, and something I originally read for pure entertainment before realizing it explores important lessons for anyone trying to be more rational.

What makes this hagiography different from most others is that the author, Thomas E Ricks, emphasises the unrelenting desire to face reality that kept these two men on the right side of history, not conventional personal virtue nor any uniquely special or deeply inspiring moral commitments. It was the ability to self-correct, to not drift off into fanciful narratives, that let an avowed socialist and a staunch imperialist become the chief opponents of the worst forms of socialism and imperialism in the twentieth century. That’s the core claim of the book - their respect for truth and ability to change their minds when it was called for led them both to recognise the totalitarian threat, and also led them to adopt the right principles. This review won’t dwell on the details of the two men’s lives, but rather tease out this particular claim.

The book is structured like an interleaved biography, and covers all the main beats in the lives of the two men. It opens with two anecdotes about how Churchill and Orwell each came close to death sometime in the 1930s - Orwell was shot in the neck in Spain whilst fighting the Francoists, while Churchill was hit by a car and nearly killed.

The point of these stories is to emphasise the ‘great man’ view of history and the idea of contingency. First, understand how easily your chosen figures could have been removed from the picture, then go on to understand how important they were.

Ricks is completely open about his belief in the great man theory, and also makes it clear that from his perspective, Churchill and Orwell weren’t moral pioneers, like the abolitionists before them or the civil rights activists who came after them (who get mentioned, perhaps to provide contrast, in the afterward). Rather, they defended the chief virtue of liberal society: that it can self-correct. Fascist (or Stalinist) control over civilisation would be particularly ruinous because the repression of free thought would mean there would be little chance for wrong values and beliefs to ever be corrected. In parallel, both men exemplified ‘self correction’ themselves: they were good at noticing if they were wrong, and pivoting to the correct position even if that was uncomfortable and isolating. The book sees these as interlinked.

The “Great Man” theory of history is much denigrated today. But sometimes individuals matter a lot. Churchill and Orwell have had lasting impacts on how we live and think today. These two men did not make the prosperous liberal postwar West—with its sustained economic boom and its steady expansion of equal rights to women, blacks, gays, and marginalized minorities—but their efforts helped establish the political, physical, and intellectual conditions that made that world possible.

When applied to examples of moral progress, the great man theory should not be reassuring. It indicates a huge role for random contingency in which values end up winning. Ricks doesn’t go as far as to say that the Axis would have won the Second World War if not for his great men, but he clearly thinks the 20th centur...

Published on October 9, 2021

You may have heard of George Orwell as the man who presaged some of the sequences’ insights on rationality, especially as applied to the English language. You might have heard of Winston Churchill as a futurist who had surprisingly longtermist inclinations for someone of his time and background. Did you know they were also both pivotal figures in saving human civilisation from the lock-in of some highly undesirable values?

‘Churchill and Orwell: The fight for freedom’ is a morality tale about the virtue of self-correction. It’s a story of two anti-heroes who recognised an unprecedented danger that threatened all of humanity when no-one else would, and an exploration of why they were capable of this. It’s also fun, engagingly written, and something I originally read for pure entertainment before realizing it explores important lessons for anyone trying to be more rational.

What makes this hagiography different from most others is that the author, Thomas E Ricks, emphasises the unrelenting desire to face reality that kept these two men on the right side of history, not conventional personal virtue nor any uniquely special or deeply inspiring moral commitments. It was the ability to self-correct, to not drift off into fanciful narratives, that let an avowed socialist and a staunch imperialist become the chief opponents of the worst forms of socialism and imperialism in the twentieth century. That’s the core claim of the book - their respect for truth and ability to change their minds when it was called for led them both to recognise the totalitarian threat, and also led them to adopt the right principles. This review won’t dwell on the details of the two men’s lives, but rather tease out this particular claim.

The book is structured like an interleaved biography, and covers all the main beats in the lives of the two men. It opens with two anecdotes about how Churchill and Orwell each came close to death sometime in the 1930s - Orwell was shot in the neck in Spain whilst fighting the Francoists, while Churchill was hit by a car and nearly killed.

The point of these stories is to emphasise the ‘great man’ view of history and the idea of contingency. First, understand how easily your chosen figures could have been removed from the picture, then go on to understand how important they were.

Ricks is completely open about his belief in the great man theory, and also makes it clear that from his perspective, Churchill and Orwell weren’t moral pioneers, like the abolitionists before them or the civil rights activists who came after them (who get mentioned, perhaps to provide contrast, in the afterward). Rather, they defended the chief virtue of liberal society: that it can self-correct. Fascist (or Stalinist) control over civilisation would be particularly ruinous because the repression of free thought would mean there would be little chance for wrong values and beliefs to ever be corrected. In parallel, both men exemplified ‘self correction’ themselves: they were good at noticing if they were wrong, and pivoting to the correct position even if that was uncomfortable and isolating. The book sees these as interlinked.

The “Great Man” theory of history is much denigrated today. But sometimes individuals matter a lot. Churchill and Orwell have had lasting impacts on how we live and think today. These two men did not make the prosperous liberal postwar West—with its sustained economic boom and its steady expansion of equal rights to women, blacks, gays, and marginalized minorities—but their efforts helped establish the political, physical, and intellectual conditions that made that world possible.

When applied to examples of moral progress, the great man theory should not be reassuring. It indicates a huge role for random contingency in which values end up winning. Ricks doesn’t go as far as to say that the Axis would have won the Second World War if not for his great men, but he clearly thinks the 20th centur...