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

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

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (34)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 20 February 2011 01:39:15AM 1 point [-]

I always assumed that altruists are aiming for a different region in the space of all possible configurations of the future light cone than egoists are, but maybe I need to examine that assumption.

Comment author: Dorikka 20 February 2011 05:42:04AM 3 points [-]

I think that these converge in at least some cases. For example, an egoist wanting to live a really long time might work on reducing existential risks because it's the most effective way of ensuring that he wakes up from being frozen. An altruist might work on reducing existential risks because he wants to save (other) people, not just himself.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 20 February 2011 02:20:08AM *  0 points [-]

I always assumed that altruists are aiming for a different region in the space of all possible configurations of the future light cone than egoists are

They do act on conflicting explicit reasons (to some small extent), but I don't expect they should.