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Philip_W comments on On Caring - Less Wrong
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I'm sympathetic to the effective altruist movement, and when I do periodically donate, I try to do so as efficiently as possible. But I don't focus much effort on it. I've concluded that my impact probably comes mostly from my everyday interactions with people around me, not from money that I send across the world.
For example: - The best way for me to improve math and science education is to work on my own teaching ability. - The best way for me to improve the mental health of college students is to make time to support friends that struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. - The best way for me to stop racism or sexism is to first learn to recognize and quash it in myself, and then to expose it when I encounter it around me.
Changing my own actions and attitudes is hard, but it's also the one area where I have the most control. And as I've worked on this for the past few years, I've managed to create a positive feedback loop by slowly increasing the size of my care-o-meter. Empathy is a useful habit that can be trained, just as much as rationality can be.
I realize that it's hard to get an accurate sense of the impact a donation can have for someone on the other side of the world. It's possible that I'm being led astray by my care-o-meter to focus on people near at hand. I do in principle care equally about people in other parts of the world, even if my care-o-meter hasn't figured that out yet. So if you'd like to prove to me that I can be more effective by focusing my efforts elsewhere, I'd be happy to listen. (I am a poor grad student, so donating large amounts of money isn't really feasible for me yet, although I do realize I still make far more than the world average.) For now, I'm doing the best that I can in the way that I know how.
To conclude, I wouldn't call myself an effective altruist, but I do count them as allies. And I wouldn't want to convert everyone to my perspective; as others have mentioned already, it's good to have a wide range of different approaches.
Could you explain how? My empathy is pretty weak and could use some boosting.
For me it works in two steps: 1) Notice something that someone would appreciate. 2) Do it for them.
As seems to often be the case with rationality techniques, the hard part is noticing. I'm a Christian, so I try to spend a few minutes praying for my friends each day. Besides the religious reasons, which may or may not matter to you, I believe it puts me in the right frame of mind to want to help others. A non-religious time of focused meditation might serve a similar purpose.
I've also worked on developing my listening skills. Friends frequently mention things that they like or dislike, and I make a special effort to remember them. I also occasionally write them down, although I try not to mention that too often. For most people, there's a stronger signaling effect if they think you just happened to remember what they liked.
You seem to be talking about what I would call sympathy, rather than empathy. As I would use it, sympathy is caring about how others feel, and empathy is the ability to (emotionally) sense how others feel. The former is in fine enough state - I am an EA, after all - it's the latter that needs work. Your step (1) could be done via empathy or pattern recognition or plain listening and remembering as you say. So I'm sorry, but this doesn't really help.