5 ms·

Sounds too good to be true, and by golly, it is! What makes me come alive is writing fiction. This is not what the world most needs from me. Not everything t

by Eliezer 17y ago

Sounds too good to be true, and by golly, it is! What makes me come alive is writing fiction. This is not what the world most needs from me. Not everything that sounds like deep wisdom is wise.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Yeah, all those damn authors who wasted their lives writing supposedly great works of fiction like Ulysses and The Grapes of Wrath and A Tale of Two Cities. They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever. Give me a break. You think the world is really better served by you giving up on your dreams? It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed.
- apsec112 17y ago
  "They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever." No, what they should have done is written their books, then donated a large fraction of the money they earned from writing them. If you're that good of an author (keeping in mind that 99.99% of people aren't), you can help the world a lot more that way than by volunteering at soup kitchens. "It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed." If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation. I sincerely doubt it. What has charity really done for starvation and poverty? There's only one thing that has ultimately had a big, lasting effect on those things: capitalism. I'm sure many will disagree, but I'd like to see the evidence that giving $1m to developing economies has more effect than investing $1m in businesses in those economies that can then grow and hire more workers. I don't presently see the case for charity, but I'd like to see more data on the subject.
    - obfuscate 17y ago
      Then substitute "invested" for "donated". Or, hell, "invested in figuring out how best to help developing countries" (like http://www.givewell.net/ http://www.givewell.net/). The stereotypical ways to help people do tend to suck (lending the original quote much of its plausibility), but there are other options.
      - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
        But that's my point: they're not the same thing. The primary motivation for an investment is what I get out of it. If it helps other people, that's great, but I'm after a great return. And the reality is that this self-motivated economic system has done more to help the less fortunate that any direct action designed to help them.
- Eliezer 17y ago
  Giving up my dreams? I refer you to http://yudkowsky.net/ http://yudkowsky.net/.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    Umm...congratulations? Not sure what point you're trying to make here. Your earlier statement was: What makes me come alive is writing fiction. This is not what the world most needs from me. But now you're linking to this site as proof that you haven't given up your dreams? So which is your dream? And regardless, my point is just that if writing fiction is what makes you come alive, what truly makes you happy, are you so certain that you're going to make more of a difference in the long run doing something else?
    - dandrews 17y ago
      In the discussion that followed the video answers entry on lesswrong, Wei Dai quoted Eliezer: "I have to remind myself that it's not what's the most fun to do, it's not even what you have talent to do, it's what you need to do that you ought to be doing." Eliezer presumably means that time is in short supply, and that every month's advance toward AI has the potential to save a great many people. Plenty enough time to write a novel after we crack that nut, but there's no time now.

by Eliezer 17y ago

Sounds too good to be true, and by golly, it is! What makes me come alive is writing fiction. This is not what the world most needs from me. Not everything that sounds like deep wisdom is wise.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

Yeah, all those damn authors who wasted their lives writing supposedly great works of fiction like Ulysses and The Grapes of Wrath and A Tale of Two Cities. They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever. Give me a break. You think the world is really better served by you giving up on your dreams? It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed.

apsec112 17y ago
"They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever." No, what they should have done is written their books, then donated a large fraction of the money they earned from writing them. If you're that good of an author (keeping in mind that 99.99% of people aren't), you can help the world a lot more that way than by volunteering at soup kitchens. "It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed." If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation. I sincerely doubt it. What has charity really done for starvation and poverty? There's only one thing that has ultimately had a big, lasting effect on those things: capitalism. I'm sure many will disagree, but I'd like to see the evidence that giving $1m to developing economies has more effect than investing $1m in businesses in those economies that can then grow and hire more workers. I don't presently see the case for charity, but I'd like to see more data on the subject.
  - obfuscate 17y ago
    Then substitute "invested" for "donated". Or, hell, "invested in figuring out how best to help developing countries" (like http://www.givewell.net/ http://www.givewell.net/). The stereotypical ways to help people do tend to suck (lending the original quote much of its plausibility), but there are other options.
    - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
      But that's my point: they're not the same thing. The primary motivation for an investment is what I get out of it. If it helps other people, that's great, but I'm after a great return. And the reality is that this self-motivated economic system has done more to help the less fortunate that any direct action designed to help them.
Eliezer 17y ago
Giving up my dreams? I refer you to http://yudkowsky.net/ http://yudkowsky.net/.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  Umm...congratulations? Not sure what point you're trying to make here. Your earlier statement was: What makes me come alive is writing fiction. This is not what the world most needs from me. But now you're linking to this site as proof that you haven't given up your dreams? So which is your dream? And regardless, my point is just that if writing fiction is what makes you come alive, what truly makes you happy, are you so certain that you're going to make more of a difference in the long run doing something else?
  - dandrews 17y ago
    In the discussion that followed the video answers entry on lesswrong, Wei Dai quoted Eliezer: "I have to remind myself that it's not what's the most fun to do, it's not even what you have talent to do, it's what you need to do that you ought to be doing." Eliezer presumably means that time is in short supply, and that every month's advance toward AI has the potential to save a great many people. Plenty enough time to write a novel after we crack that nut, but there's no time now.