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ryjm comments on What happens when your beliefs fully propagate - Less Wrong Discussion
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As a relatively new member of this site, I'm having trouble grasping this particular reasoning and motivation for participating in FAI. I've browsed Eleizer's various writings on the subject of FAI itself, so I have a vague understanding of why FAI is important, and such a vague understanding is enough for me to conclude that FAI is one, if not the most, important topic that currently needs to be discussed. This belief may not be entirely my own and is perhaps largely influenced by the amount of comments and posts in support of FAI, in conjunction with my lack of knowledge in the area.
With this lack of understanding, I think it is clear /why/ I haven't given up my life to support FAI. But it seems to me that many others on this site know much, much more about the subject, and they still have not given up their lives for FAI.
So my brain has made an equivalence between supporting FAI and other acts of extreme charity. I think highly of those who work for years in impoverished countries battling local calamities, but I don't find myself very motivated to participate. From my observations, I think this is because I have never heard of anyone with the goal of saving the world actually making significant progress in that direction. However, I have heard of many people who have made the world a better place while never exhibiting such lofty motivations.
I guess this is similar to cousin_it's response in that it seems strange to me to pursue something because it is a "big important problem". But I am also worried about the following line of reasoning:
Motivation to participate in FAI => motivation to do charitable work => I should be motivated to do all sorts of charitable work.
This seems like it would become reality only if my interests were aligned with the charitable work. In the OP's reasoning, is the motivation to save the world enough to align interest with work? To me, it seems analogous to the effect of a sugar high on your energy level.
If I did find myself working with FAI, it would probably be because I found that these were interesting problems to solve, and not because I wanted to save the world.
Even when you understand that FAI is the most important thing to be doing, there are many ways in which you can fail to translate that into action.
It seems most people are making the assumption that I'll suddenly start doing really boring work that I hate. That's not the case. I have to maximize my benefit, which means considering all the factors. I can't be productive in something that I'm just bad at, or something that I really hate, so I won't do that. But there are plenty of things that I'm somewhat interested in and somewhat familiar with, that would probably do a lot more to help with FAI than making games. But, again, it's something that has to be carefully determined. That's all I was trying to say in this post. I have an important goal -> I need to really consider what the best way to achieve that goal is.
I see. I wasn't asserting that you are going to do work you hate, however. I was mainly looking at the value of having a seemingly unachievable and incredibly broad goal as one's primary motivation.
I'm sure you have a much more nuanced view of how and why you are undertaking this life change, and I don't want to discourage you. Seeing as how the general consensus is that FAI is the most important thing to be doing, I think it would take a lot of effort to discourage you. I just can't help but think that there should be a primary technical interest in the problems presented by FAI motivating these kinds of decisions. If it was me, I would be confused as to what exactly I would be working on, which would be very discouraging.
I'm also confused as to what I should be working on. That was one of the primary reason it took a while for me to get to this point. I still don't know what to do, but I know I have to do my best to figure it out.