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Dentin comments on Effective Altruism from XYZ perspective - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Clarity 08 July 2015 04:34AM

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Tags: places market assumptions economics capitalism prioritarianism utilitarianism fuzzies warm altruism effective

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 July 2015 03:21:43PM 4 points [-]

That sounds obviously false on its face.

Well, quite. The problem I see is that equality of worth is for some a sacred value, leading to the valuing of all lives equally and direction of resources to wherever the most lives can be saved, regardless of whose they are. While it is not something that logically follows from the basic idea of directing resources wherever they can do the most good, I don't see the EA movement grasping the nettle of what counts as the most good. Lives or QALYs are the only things on the EA table at present.

Comment author: Dentin 10 July 2015 07:53:58PM 2 points [-]

That's unfortunate. There can be no sacred values. That way lies madness.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 11 July 2015 07:15:37AM *  1 point [-]

There can be no sacred values.

Nevertheless:

This matches research showing that there are "sacred values", like human lives, and "unsacred values", like money. When you try to trade off a sacred value against an unsacred value, subjects express great indignation (sometimes they want to punish the person who made the suggestion).

-- Circular Altruism

That way lies madness.

Well...

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