= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
emr comments on Open Thread, Feb. 2 - Feb 8, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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 (253)
With just this information, I'd likely say that being an aspiring rationalist doesn't really have anything to do with your goals, as its mostly about methods of reaching your goals, rather than telling you what your goals should be.
Following it up with this:
Confuses me a bit, however.
If one of your goals is making the world a better place (that's how I'd rephrase the statement: "I do recognize making the world a better place is a good thing," saying as saying things like "X is good" generally means "X is a desirable state of the world we should strive for), your intrinsic motivation shouldn't matter one bit.
I have little intrinsic motivation of eating healthy. Preparing food is boring to me and I don't particularly enjoy eating most healthy things. I still try to eat healthy, because one of my goals is living for a very, very long time.
One the one hand: How difficult is it to give 10% (or even 5 or 1 percent, if your income is very low) to an effective charity?
On the other hand: So fucking what? You know how the world becomes a better place? By people doing things that are difficult and thankless because those things need to be done. The world doesn't become a better place by people sitting around waiting for the brief moment of inspiration in which they sorta want to solve a local problem.
This is one of the many reasons why effective altruism works. It allows you to contribute to big problems, while you're doing something you enjoy and are good at.
(Or we can wait for /u/blacktrance to come in and try to convince you that egoism is the right way to go.)
Historical, isn't that exactly how the world became a better place? Better technology and better institutions are the ingredients of reduced suffering, and both of these see to have developed by people pursuing solutions to their own (very local) problems, like how to make money and how to stop the government from abusing you. Even scientists who work far upstream of any application seem to be more motivated by curiosity and fame than a desire to reduce global suffering.
Of course, modern wealth disparities may have changed the situation. But we should be clear, if we think that we've entered a new historical phase in which the largest future reductions in suffering are going to come from globally-altruistic motivations.
Compared to what, medieval Europe?
Yes. Richer states can afford to transfer more wealth. We see this in the size of modern (domestic) welfare states, which could not have been shouldered even a century ago.
Well, Rome was basically a welfare state two millennia ago.