komponisto 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.

Comment author: komponisto 20 February 2011 05:31:52AM -1 points [-]

I agree with Nesov, Salamon, and Dorikka and suspect furthermore that the distinction between "altruists" and "egoists" that is drawn in the post is a confusion which doesn't survive careful scrutiny.

It seems to me that the people you call "altruists" are simply people who are attempting to have a particularly large impact on the long-term future of the world in a particularly direct way. But not everyone needs to work so directly on the most global scales, all the time; there is room (and likely need) for a division of labor, with some working more locally. For some (probably very many) people, improving themselves is among the most effective contributions to the future of humanity they can make.