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Viliam_Bur comments on Another Critique of Effective Altruism - Less Wrong
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It is interesting, what people inside EA find troubling, compared to people outside. (I do not identify myself as EA).
For me, the most repellent things are mentioned here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/j8n/a_critique_of_effective_altruism/#poor-psychological-understanding
In other words, self sacrifice is expected from me to the extent, that my life would suck. No, thanks.
Specifically, the issues about children: 1. I want to have them. 2. Apart from my psychological need - do the damned EA know what they are doing ? Is it really that helpful, that western middle class should have even lower population growth, than there is know ? Some people predict, that Europe, as my (our ??) children will know it, will be Islamic. I hope I will not offend the muslim rationalists, I know there are some on this site. Anyway, the culture currently associated with Islam does not seem to me like truth-seeking-friendly. It certainly will fix itself later, like Christianity fixed itself from the bigotry stage in cca 600 years. But do we really want to withdraw from the population battle entirely ? (OK, the word battle probably does not attract You altruist folks, but I do not know the other way to say it). I can imagine the counterarguments, that spreading memes inside familes is not that efficient, that children often rebel. And that memes can be spread outside the family. Well, good luck turning the significant portion of Muslim imigrants into rationalists ! USA is different from EU, but I guess withdrawing middle class from children bearing pool there is also no victory.
I mean, I do not force anybody to have children if they do not want to. It is a lot of work and resources. But to guilt anybody into not having them ? There are way too many people in that cathegory, who are lazy to have them. Why adding another incentive by making it virtuous ?
Seems like EA could be yet another destructive Western superstimulus, although unlike many others it generates a lot of utility in other parts of the world. Still, maybe avoiding self-destruction could be wiser in long run -- you know, just in case the Friendly AI fails to materialize for another 20 years or more.
Some people also take regular exercise too far. Does that make it a bad thing? If you're actually being self-destructive, then that's clearly not optimal even from an extreme altruist perspective because you will be most effective and productive when you are happy, healthy, and motivated. Consider how well many top companies like Google treat their employees.
This seems to be a common misconception about effective altruism for some people.
I once told a person about effective altruism and this person said to me:
This is a bit puzzling to me because it's quite clear that this is not an optimal lifestyle especially for effective altruists because you want to continue giving for as long as possible. The effects on your mental health and the burnout risk is not worth the small amount of money you could save by possibly sacrificing all your future donations.