AnnaSalamon comments on What happens when your beliefs fully propagate - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Alexei 14 February 2012 07:53AM

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Comment author: AnnaSalamon 15 February 2012 06:31:00PM *  7 points [-]

I mostly-agree, except that question 1 shouldn't say:

"In a least convenient world, would you utterly forgo all interest in return for making some small difference to global utility".

It should say: "… is there any extent to which impact on strangers' well-being would influence your choices? For example, if you were faced with a choice between reading a chapter of a kind-of-interesting book with no external impact, or doing chores for an hour and thereby saving a child's life, would you sometimes choose the latter?"

If the answer to that latter question is yes -- if expected impact on others' well-being can potentially sway your actions at some margin -- then it is worth looking into the empirical details, and seeing what bundles of global well-being and personal well-being can actually be bought, and how attractive those bundles are.

Comment author: Alex_Altair 15 February 2012 07:04:38PM 6 points [-]

impact on strangers' well-being

I object to this being framed as primarily about others versus self. I pursue FAI for the perfectly selfish reason that it maximizes my expected life span and quality. I think the conflict being discussed is about near interest conflicting with far interest, and how near interest creates more motivation.