In a book called "The Happiness Hypothesis", Jonathan Haidt described the unconscious mind as an elephant and the conscious mind as an elephant rider or driver. I wonder if a similar metaphor is useful here. His book certainly spends some time talking about how we might control our emotions to our benefit, though I don't know that it's more useful in that regard than most other pop-psych-with-a-side-of-CBT offerings.

I don't take it as a given that the problems of survival and reproduction are solved, though their context has certainly changed. I've not yet met anyone who could live forever if they so chose, or anyone who can reproduce without the help (with or without permission) of another person.

I came across a post on efficiency of charity, and joined in order to be able to add my comments. I'm not sure I would identify myself as a rationalist at all, though I share some of what I understand to be rationalist values.

I am a musician and a teacher. I'm also a theist, though I hope to be relatively untroublesome about this and I have no wish to proselytize. Rather, I'm interested in exploring rational ways of discussing or thinking about moral and ethical issues that have more traditionally been addressed within a religious framework.

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I don't suggest that people who donate money to charity should discontinue that support but I do think it helpful if they also spend some time, perhaps as little as an hour per week or month, doing some kind of aid work that offers the opportunity for a genuine relationship not based on who has more money. As most people do not spend all their waking hours working, this need not detract from their financial contributions.

This is an important point: perfectly spherical rationalists of uniform density in a vacuum at absolute zero might make a more productive contribution to charity by working and donating rather than personal contribution of time, but perfectly spherical rationalists of uniform density in a vacuum at absolute zero are in somewhat short supply. In the world of humans, a bit of hands-on participation makes it far more likely that they will bother to continue to contribute to that charity at all.

here on LessWrong we will try to quantify the value of loving kindness and encouragement, and after quantifying we're going to find that it would fall well below the value of immediate food, shelter, and medical needs.

It helps in this regard to be really sure of the security of one's own immediate food, shelter and medical needs.

(Can this be claimed of all LessWrong participants? If so, then LW's participant base is not wide enough.)

It is not only not obviously moral, it is immoral, if that means anything, for a government, or a person, to spend every last dollar on helping the unfortunate before spending any money on education, roads, defense, art, or even entertainment.

This seems a false dichotomy; the unfortunate will also be helped by money spent on education, roads and other measures which increase the common good (so long as they do not make the plight of the unfortunate worse).

Whether to spend money on medicine for the sick, education for those who cannot get access to it with their own resources, or art and etertainment by which a culture might examine these problems strikes me as being a bit like medical triage in an emergency room. Perhaps it makes sense to treat personal resource management similarly.

And likewise, there is only one best charity: the one that helps the most people the greatest amount per dollar.

I disagree. Giving money to charity is not different from spending money on a latte at Starbucks. I spend money according to my values. And I still buy lattes. I am not Zachary Baumkletterer. Even Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always", to justify spending an INCREDIBLE amount of money (enough to buy ten people's entire lives, in an era with no inflation, making it comparable to ten million US dollars today) on pouring perfume once on Jesus' feet. The guy was tired and depressed and about to be crucified and wanted his damn perfume, like I want my damn latte.

Similarly, people who gave money to keep a painting in a museum, might also spend considerably more money to buy paintings to hang in their houses, than it would take to save a life in another country. These people value art, and they value benefitting others. Draw a 2D plot, and label the axes "selfish ... unselfish" and "spiritual ... physical" ("spiritual" standing for art and other "impractical" values). One person might

• buy a painting to hang in their bedroom (spiritual, selfish)
• buy a painting to hang in their guest room (spiritual, sorta selfish)
• spend to preserve a painting in a museum (spiritual, unselfish)
• buy fuzzy slippers (physical, selfish)
• spend money for vaccines in Africa (physical, unselfish)

And each of those things could have similar utility for them.

I don't think this is irrational. Irrational is spending any money at all on "charity" instead of spending it according to your utility function.

This post contains the hidden presupposition that charity, using a collective utility function, is more moral than self-oriented actions; and therefore, following our utility functions is immoral. This is an assertion about morality and rationality that has huge implications! It is resonant with a very common meme that says that "moral" behavior is behavior that we don't want to do, because we are fundamentally immoral. I say, instead, that morals are part of our utility function - that we have these things called morals because part of us really wants to be nice to other people. They are just another part of our utility function.

Encouraging unselfish behavior can be done by manipulating peoples' selfish desires to produce "unselfish" behavior (give to charity and get social benefits, or stay out of Hell), as a mechanism to solve PD problems with a given payoff matrix. But it can also be done by treating people in ways that encourage what natural unselfish tendencies they have - solving PD problems by changing people's payoff matrices.

Apply Kant's imperative. This post suggests that we have 2 utility functions, one for everyday life, and another for charity; and that the one for charity is more moral. But if everyone used such a charity utility function for everything they did, it would result in a global race to the bottom as economies imploded after spending all national wealth on ameliorating suffering while undercutting all private motivation. Therefore, it is less moral. It is not only not obviously moral, it is immoral, if that means anything, for a government, or a person, to spend every last dollar on helping the unfortunate before spending any money on education, roads, defense, art, or even entertainment.

Welcome to LessWrong! I'd like to mention that here on LessWrong we will try to quantify the value of loving kindness and encouragement, and after quantifying we're going to find that it would fall well below the value of immediate food, shelter, and medical needs.

especially as I earn very little money anyway.

I suspect this is a stronger reason than the preceding paragraph ;)

I think this might be correct but that humans are prone to prioritising the welfare of kin and close friends, and so someone working directly with people and forming some kind of relationship with them may be more likely to donate financial resources to that group in future. The lawyer may be more willing to spend money to keep a beach safe and free of litter if he or she has some personal experience which increases the importance of that beach in his mind. Most of us don't give much weight to mosquito nets because our own experience doesn't even put that on the radar.

I make a point of buying only FairTrade chocolate. My mental hack for times when I feel tempted to buy the ordinary kind is to think about people I love and admire, and imagine that my spending decision extends as far as having an immediate impact on whether they are paid fairly for their work. This is not, directly, how the market works, but as a re-framing exercise it does help me in sticking to a resolution when my own desires seem more compelling than those of the people who produce the chocolate.

I also question whether money is always more directly effective than time. I think the human relationships which might draw people to further financial support are often in and of themselves beneficial. That has certainly been my experience in formal and informal mentoring situations. No amount of money can buy lovingkindness, and while a kind word will not fill an empty stomach, someone with their immediate food, shelter and medical needs met may still be very much in need of that kind word. Encouragement and genuine care should not be overlooked as factors in increasing someone's quality and duration of life.

These things are hard to quantify but, for me, they tip the balance toward contributing time and energy directly to local causes, especially as I earn very little money anyway.