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What I read in this is essentially an observation that "A scenario: you want to help people" does not necessarily (and possibly not even in most cases) imply "y

What I read in this is essentially an observation that "A scenario: you want to help people" does not necessarily (and possibly not even in most cases) imply "you want to maximize your good-output". In many (perhaps most?) cases the feeling and motivation people have is the intuitive desire to feel good about helping others in their society personally, which is in many ways different from "true altruism". And it makes some sense (from e.g. evolutionary psychology perspective) to consider that our innate desire to "do good" is closely related to building social ties and status, and by helping people close to us in various ways (kinship, common "tribe-in-the-wide-sense-of-that-word", previous relationship history, expected future interactions) as opposed to simply helping abstract people as much as you can. True altruism is the exception (IMHO) rather than the norm, it certainly exists in some cases, but most helping others and charity and doing good is driven by "ordinary goodwill" that includes a mix of other motivations. And, of course, if someone's goal is not really altruism, then doing more effective altruism won't help them achieve their goals. If we ("abstract we") want to optimize effective altruism, then instead we should help optimize people's efforts witin the area where true altruism overlaps with their actual goals to "do good" (whatever they mean by "do good" since that likely isn't exactly the same thing as true altruism); since once we get to the proposals which are more altruistic but contrary to their true personal goals/values, people are just going to reject the whole thing (as most do).

yrimaxi 6y ago
I keep getting impressed by the EA-proponents ability and eagerness to frame EA as “true altruism” (an actual quote in this case!), as if EA is some purely-rational approach with no philosophical baggage or assumptions. How utterly self-congratulatory. Another problem I have with EA is how incredibly fragile it is: because it is so reductive and narrowly-focused, you are likely to optimize for the wrong thing (the map is never the territory) and might even do more harm than good. In the best case scenario you might do a lot of good, though.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  Ah, I'm not really an EA-proponent, so please don't use my arguments as bad examples of their position, that wouldn't be fair. My use of "true altruism" isn't a proper term, I just needed to somehow contrast two different aspects of "altruism-as-understood-in-common-language", to differentiate the theoretical concept of fully unselfish concern for the welfare of others with the (IMHO more popular/realistic) concept that's somewhat like "general habit/desire/concer/action of doing good for others with limited (but still some) selfishness, because of a mix of motivation only part of which is actual altruism". I mean, IMHO framing "effective altruism" as "true altruism" isn't that inaccurate as far as philosophy and definitions are concerned - my main criticism of EA is that actual altruism (according to a strict definition of altruism) is quite rare, so for most people effective altruism isn't personally relevant because most people (including me) simply aren't truly altruistic; it provides a guide on how to maximize something that most people (myself included) don't really want to maximize, they want to maximize other things which may have some overlap with altruism but diverge from it as you leave commonly accepted charity practices and approach various maximums. I do concede that it's definitely good according to most value systems (including purely selfish ones) to have everyone else in your society to be a bit more altruistic, everything just works better that way, so facilitating various nudges towards altruism is generally a Good Thing no matter how altruistic you or I personally are.

yrimaxi 6y ago

I keep getting impressed by the EA-proponents ability and eagerness to frame EA as “true altruism” (an actual quote in this case!), as if EA is some purely-rational approach with no philosophical baggage or assumptions. How utterly self-congratulatory. Another problem I have with EA is how incredibly fragile it is: because it is so reductive and narrowly-focused, you are likely to optimize for the wrong thing (the map is never the territory) and might even do more harm than good. In the best case scenario you might do a lot of good, though.

PeterisP 6y ago
Ah, I'm not really an EA-proponent, so please don't use my arguments as bad examples of their position, that wouldn't be fair. My use of "true altruism" isn't a proper term, I just needed to somehow contrast two different aspects of "altruism-as-understood-in-common-language", to differentiate the theoretical concept of fully unselfish concern for the welfare of others with the (IMHO more popular/realistic) concept that's somewhat like "general habit/desire/concer/action of doing good for others with limited (but still some) selfishness, because of a mix of motivation only part of which is actual altruism". I mean, IMHO framing "effective altruism" as "true altruism" isn't that inaccurate as far as philosophy and definitions are concerned - my main criticism of EA is that actual altruism (according to a strict definition of altruism) is quite rare, so for most people effective altruism isn't personally relevant because most people (including me) simply aren't truly altruistic; it provides a guide on how to maximize something that most people (myself included) don't really want to maximize, they want to maximize other things which may have some overlap with altruism but diverge from it as you leave commonly accepted charity practices and approach various maximums. I do concede that it's definitely good according to most value systems (including purely selfish ones) to have everyone else in your society to be a bit more altruistic, everything just works better that way, so facilitating various nudges towards altruism is generally a Good Thing no matter how altruistic you or I personally are.