= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
lukeprog comments on Four Focus Areas of Effective Altruism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (57)
On Facebook, Eliezer suggested an alternate name for practitioners of effective altruism: "Ravenclaw Gryffindors."
Elizabeth Synclair replied: "What? Clearly any effective altruist worth their salt is a Ravenpuff."
(To explain: Hogwarts Houses.)
Gryffindors are brave, which is useful for fighting oppression...but, you know, terrorism and stuff also requires bravery.
Ravenclaws are curious, which can be used to help people, but it can be used for other things as well.
Slytherins are ambitious, and the story has done enough to illustrate the dual nature of that trait.
Hufflepuffs ... they aren't just one thing. Conscientiousness, Loyalty, and Agreeableness all seem to play a role, but are those things really so strongly correlated? Does this "wholesome" nature finally add up to altruism? Does this altruism extend outside the in-group? I think Rowling was going for some sort of hearty, homespun, down-to-earth archetype there... not sure if it would ever be measurable in a single psychometric variable. If I was writing her story, I'd probably settle on "Loyalty", as in valuing friends and loved ones, with the other two traits just being common behavioral side effects of having this value. In which case, it takes a far-sighted Hufflepuff to extend those feelings of friendship to all intelligent beings...while a near sighted one might become nationalism.
Robby Bensinger cleverly expended upon this, describing the various motivations for effective altruism as "slytherfuzzies", "ravenfuzzies", "gryffinfuzzies ", and "hufflefuzzies".
Being effective at almost anything can benefit from the virtues of all 4 houses. I.e. Slitherclaw Gryffinpuffs.
You have to be a Hufflepuff to want to help. You have to be a Ravenclaw to be smart enough to do so. You have to be Slytherin to realize what you can do. And I guess you have to be Gryffindor, to do something nobody else does.
While we're at it, what elements would you need?
Generosity, obviously.
I don't think the Elements of Harmony can help much beyond that.
Honesty in one's dealings is always important. As a member of ROTLCON staff (brony convention in Colorado), I am often asked difficult questions about helping people through our charity auction. Lying is not an option, if one expects to donate, or to accept donations. Kindness? Given how the show seems to show it off in Fluttershy, I would guess that kindness includes one's understanding and acceptance of other people. Saving a people by destroying something else means knowing exactly what you destroy, and seeing its value--perhaps, the destruction can be avoided. Only one example of kindness as shown in the show, of course. Loyalty--uncertain. Laughter--as a convention, the thing I'm working on is about fun. But, it is also an attempt to throw money at the problem in the best way possible (something we're just figuring out, by the way, so we will be applying the above article and related advice to altruism). So, also uncertain, but there is a connection for me and my fellow con staff.
We could use a few more Slitherpuffs too.
Grytherplaw, ideally - or whatever the portmanteau of all four houses would be.
Normalpersononmodafinil.