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Seems to me like humans do lots of things for distant benefits: they die for ideals, work their whole lives to give their children a better future, save for ret

Seems to me like humans do lots of things for distant benefits: they die for ideals, work their whole lives to give their children a better future, save for retirement, produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future, etc

est31 7y ago
And still, a politician who says that airplane ticket and meat prices should rise to levels unaffordable by the bottom 95% won't get elected. It's too unpopular. Despite quite many people in non-western countries not flying in airplanes and only eating meat on rare occasions.
sjwright 7y ago
None of those are distant benefits. The person who dies for “ideals” are mostly driven by false claims[0] about the nature of the afterlife. Improving your child’s outcomes is a biologically preset desire. Saving for retirement is still ultimately in one’s immediate self interest. Producing theoretical research has the immediate benefit of recognition in their fields and the possibility of a “lottery win” outcome. Saving for retirement is
- sjwright 7y ago
  Oops, don't know how I managed to submit that without finishing it. Oh well, I'll throw in my footnote anyway: [0] More precisely, claims they can't know to be true. (And are also almost certainly false.)
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> they die for ideals Sometimes. This is not something generally expected of people, and newsworthy when it happens. Not all ideals are also selfless - some, like loyalty to one's God in expectation of an afterlife, is directly selfish. > work their whole lives to give their children a better future A combination of biological imperative and social pressure older than civilization; also pretty selfish. > save for retirement Most people can't really do that, especially not when living paycheck-to-paycheck. That's why retirement funds tend to be done in opt-out and usually socialized fashion. > produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future Even ignoring the status seekers, pure intellectual curiosity gives short-term emotional rewards. I doubt most researchers would be able to sustain their efforts if they didn't feel at least some immediate intellectual reward that outweighed their lowered (or sometimes non-existent) salaries. My point isn't that individuals aren't capable of putting long-term benefits in front of their short-term interests. My point is that they aren't capable of doing it at scale, in a coordinated fashion. A lot of this boils down to coordination problems - when personal sacrifice has low marginal utility (i.e. you need to get a lot of people on-board to materialize the benefits) and high immediate cost, few people will choose the sacrifice, and even if a small group coordinates on this, the first person to defect will destroy it all.

est31 7y ago

And still, a politician who says that airplane ticket and meat prices should rise to levels unaffordable by the bottom 95% won't get elected. It's too unpopular. Despite quite many people in non-western countries not flying in airplanes and only eating meat on rare occasions.

sjwright 7y ago

None of those are distant benefits. The person who dies for “ideals” are mostly driven by false claims[0] about the nature of the afterlife. Improving your child’s outcomes is a biologically preset desire. Saving for retirement is still ultimately in one’s immediate self interest. Producing theoretical research has the immediate benefit of recognition in their fields and the possibility of a “lottery win” outcome. Saving for retirement is

sjwright 7y ago
Oops, don't know how I managed to submit that without finishing it. Oh well, I'll throw in my footnote anyway: [0] More precisely, claims they can't know to be true. (And are also almost certainly false.)

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> they die for ideals Sometimes. This is not something generally expected of people, and newsworthy when it happens. Not all ideals are also selfless - some, like loyalty to one's God in expectation of an afterlife, is directly selfish. > work their whole lives to give their children a better future A combination of biological imperative and social pressure older than civilization; also pretty selfish. > save for retirement Most people can't really do that, especially not when living paycheck-to-paycheck. That's why retirement funds tend to be done in opt-out and usually socialized fashion. > produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future Even ignoring the status seekers, pure intellectual curiosity gives short-term emotional rewards. I doubt most researchers would be able to sustain their efforts if they didn't feel at least some immediate intellectual reward that outweighed their lowered (or sometimes non-existent) salaries. My point isn't that individuals aren't capable of putting long-term benefits in front of their short-term interests. My point is that they aren't capable of doing it at scale, in a coordinated fashion. A lot of this boils down to coordination problems - when personal sacrifice has low marginal utility (i.e. you need to get a lot of people on-board to materialize the benefits) and high immediate cost, few people will choose the sacrifice, and even if a small group coordinates on this, the first person to defect will destroy it all.