The standard pledge for people in the rationalist sphere trying to make the world a better place is 10% of income to efficient charities, which if you're making the typical kind of money for this site's demographics, is closer to "token" than "difficult and thankless task", even if it's loads more than most people do.

Personally, my own response was to notice how little guilt I felt for not living up to moral obligations and decide I was evil and functionally become an egoist while still thinking of utilitarianism as "the true morality".

If I were to take a reductionalist approach, what's the connection between rationality and making the world a better place.

How would you respond if I said I'm a rationalist, however I don't feel a strong motivation to make the world a better place?

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:

To be clear, I do recognize making the world a better place a good thing, I just don't feel much intrinsic motivation to actually do it.

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.

I guess in part it's because I expect genuinely trying to improve things (rather than making a token effort) to be a rather difficult and thankless task.

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.

Part of the reason, I think, is that I don't see myself being able to do something I really don't enjoy for long enough that it produces meaningful results. So in order for it work, it pretty much has to be something I actually like doing.

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.)

How would you respond if I said I'm a rationalist, however I don't feel a strong motivation to make the world a better place?

To be clear, I do recognize making the world a better place a good thing, I just don't feel much intrinsic motivation to actually do it.

I guess in part it's because I expect genuinely trying to improve things (rather than making a token effort) to be a rather difficult and thankless task.

Also, as far as I can tell, my psychological makeup is such that feeling, thinking or being told that I'm "obligated" to do something actually decreases my motivation. So the idea that "I'm supposed do that because it's the ethical thing to do" doesn't work for me either.

I do like the idea of making the world a better place as long as I can do that while doing something that inspires me or that I feel good about doing. Part of the reason, I think, is that I don't see myself being able to do something I really don't enjoy for long enough that it produces meaningful results. So in order for it work, it pretty much has to be something I actually like doing.

In the end, I estimate that I'm more likely to accomplish things with social benefit if I focus on my own needs and wait until I feel inspired to do something for others (or until there's an overlap between meeting my needs and doing things for others), rather than trying to force an intention to do things for others (and then feel I'm not being honest with myself and that I don't actually have that intention).

I don't know how to feel about that.