Dorikka comments on LW was started to help altruists - Less Wrong

-6 Post author: rhollerith_dot_com 19 February 2011 09:13PM

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Comment author: Dorikka 19 February 2011 09:25:41PM 7 points [-]

Uh, okay, that's great. So what? I don't see that this post says anything that's actually useful, it doesn't really seem like a coherent argument for anything, and I get the vague 'hidden argument' feeling that I get from seeing Dark Arts in action.

Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 20 February 2011 02:07:51AM *  2 points [-]

I get the vague 'hidden argument' feeling that I get from seeing Dark Arts in action.

That leads me to believe I have been insufficiently transparent about my motivations for writing, so let me try to rectify that insufficiency:

This site (and OB before it and the SL4 mailing list) has always been an congenial place for altruists, and I wanted to preserve that quality.

Now that I have the comments, it occurs to me that my post was probably too heavy-handed in how it went about that goal, but I still think that an effective way to achieve that goal is to write a post that altruists will like and non-altruists will find pointless or even slightly off-putting. if too high a fraction of the recent posts on this site have nothing interesting to say to altruists, that is a problem because most readers will not read a lot of the content written in previous years because that is the way the web is. (the post I was replying to starts by wondering whether LW should have more posts about recursive human self-improvement, and recursive human self-improvement short of whole brain emulation or similar long-range plans is not a potent enough means to altruistic end to be interesting to altruists.) But my post was too heavy-handed in that it was a reply to a post not of interest to altruists rather than being a post that stands on its own and is of interest to altruists and not of interests to non-altruists.

Another motivation I had was to persuade people to become more altruistic, but now that I see it written out like that, it occurs to me that probably the only way to do that effectively on LW is to set a positive personal example. also, it occurs to me that my post did engage in some exhortation or even cheer-leading, and exhortation and cheer-leading are probably ineffective.

Comment author: Dorikka 20 February 2011 04:12:40AM *  4 points [-]

I'm not sure that I can answer effectively without stating how altruistic I consider myself to be. I feel that I am a semi-altruist -- I assign higher utility to the welfare and happiness people I am personally attached to and myself, but, by default, I assign positive utility to the welfare and happiness of any sentient being.

I found your post offputting because it looked like a covert argument for altruism of the following form:

  1. Eliezer and co. are altruists
  2. Eliezer and co have written material (especially) to help altruists, and you have benefited.
  3. Thus, you should be an altruist.

To me, this resembles an argument from authority and possibly an attempt at trying to make people feel that they should pay for goods already received.

This, this, and this are appealing to me as emotional arguments for altruism, just in case this helps you get a better idea of where I am coming from.

Edit: Click on the "Help" tag on the bottom left of the comments box to see how to italicize words in comments.

Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 20 February 2011 05:51:50AM *  0 points [-]

Eliezer and co have written material (especially) to help altruists, and you have benefited. Thus, you should be an altruist. . . . trying to make people feel that they should pay for goods already received.

Agree, though to be an effective use of the Dark Arts, I should have followed up with what the marketing folks call a "call to action".

Thanks for your comments.

Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 19 February 2011 09:28:30PM -1 points [-]

I don't see that this post says anything that's actually useful

Is it not useful to know the reason why the persons who have final authority over this site started this site?

Comment author: Dorikka 19 February 2011 10:30:26PM 2 points [-]

I agree with Nesov that his link is a much better source of the information -- it has the bonus of actually being written by one of the people whose actions you are paraphrasing.

I didn't get the gist that the main point of this post was for informational purposes, but to convert people to altruism (ineffectively so, IMO). I think that I got this message primarily through seeing the term "altruism" and its variants in italics repeatedly.

Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 20 February 2011 03:09:09AM 0 points [-]

I get the vague 'hidden argument' feeling that I get from seeing Dark Arts in action.

A paraphrase of a theme in my post is that people whose motives are unobjectionable and widely admired in our society have given the readers a gift motivated by X, and then to point out that many reader and posters are using that gift for motive Y, which, yeah, is a use of Dark Arts.

Is that part of your objection to my post?

Comment author: Dorikka 20 February 2011 04:21:35AM 0 points [-]

Yes. Operating off of a utility function which attaches values to different world-states and acting according to consequential ethics, it just doesn't seem to make any sense.

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