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John_Maxwell_IV comments on “Be A Superdonor!”: Promoting Effective Altruism by Appealing to the Heart - Less Wrong Discussion

8 Post author: Gleb_Tsipursky 09 November 2015 06:20PM

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Tags: outreach emotions intentionalinsights wordspreading effectivealtruism

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Comment author: OrphanWilde 09 November 2015 09:20:01PM 21 points [-]

Once you start trying to appeal to "emotionally-oriented" thinkers (what a euphemism), you start bringing them into your group. Once you bring them into your group, they start participating in creating your group policy. Once they start participating in creating your group policy - you stop being effective, because they don't care about effective, and they outnumber you.

Don't court the Iron Law of Oligarchy so directly. Keep your focus on your organization's purpose, rather than your organization. It will last slightly longer that way.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 11 November 2015 11:06:16PM 4 points [-]

Do you mean the Iron Law of Bureaucracy?

...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 11 November 2015 11:13:32PM 1 point [-]

So I did, yes. I suspect I've mixed those mentally more than once.

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