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> and that's bad for the actual altruistic causes because Because if all the numbers are made up, you don’t actually know what is an “altruistic” choice. You c

> and that's bad for the actual altruistic causes because Because if all the numbers are made up, you don’t actually know what is an “altruistic” choice. You can say, gamble with other peoples money, and justify it by donating 10% of the returns to charity. And if the math works out in your head, it’s all good. > Yes there are such people. I don't think they would be less greedy and exploitative if they didn't have a way to feel better about it. Lol, we’re arguing about a moral philosophy here, and your argument is that anything bad that people do, keeping in line with the philosophy is irrelevant? It’s also not that “there are such people”. I’m saying that EA will disproportionately attract the greedy because fundamentally it argues that you can buy your way into altruism. It’s the Catholic Church selling indulgences for the 21st century.

ithkuil 4y ago
are you saying that if it weren't for EA, the greedy people who it attracts would behave better because they wouldn't have a way to wash their sins?
- fnordian_slip 4y ago
  Maybe not all of them, but since a lot of recruiting is done at universities, where people are in their formative years, I believe the previous poster does have a point. There are probably quite a few people just who want to do good, and get suckered into longtermism which results in them doing AI research instead. You can actually see some of them in the EA forums, where they discuss this struggle. Of course, as a lot of things surrounding EA, this is ironically quite hard to quantify ;) Btw. please don't take it as an attack on EA as a concept, I believe that it has much to give provided it is not mixed with too much pseudo long-term thinking as described in the article, which in the end has way too much uncertainty in it for my taste.

ithkuil 4y ago

are you saying that if it weren't for EA, the greedy people who it attracts would behave better because they wouldn't have a way to wash their sins?

fnordian_slip 4y ago
Maybe not all of them, but since a lot of recruiting is done at universities, where people are in their formative years, I believe the previous poster does have a point. There are probably quite a few people just who want to do good, and get suckered into longtermism which results in them doing AI research instead. You can actually see some of them in the EA forums, where they discuss this struggle. Of course, as a lot of things surrounding EA, this is ironically quite hard to quantify ;) Btw. please don't take it as an attack on EA as a concept, I believe that it has much to give provided it is not mixed with too much pseudo long-term thinking as described in the article, which in the end has way too much uncertainty in it for my taste.