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> Should we not talk ourselves into believing into stuff? Should smart people specifically avoid changing their beliefs out of fear of "justify all kinds of ter

> Should we not talk ourselves into believing into stuff? Should smart people specifically avoid changing their beliefs out of fear of "justify all kinds of terrible things"? It's simple really: just be skeptical of your own reasoning because you're aware of your own biases and fallibility. Be a good scientist and be open to being wrong. > So you don't trust donating money to food banks or malaria nets because "don't have any reason to trust them", then what? No, they don't trust that you can scale the concept of "food banks are more effective than I am" to any kind of maximization. You can still donate to worthy causes and effective organizations. > Don't donate any money at all? Give up trying to maximize impact and donate to whatever you feel like donating to? Yeah, basically. Giving is more helpful than not giving, so even a non-maximalist approach is better than nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good, aim for good.

gruez 4y ago
>It's simple really: just be skeptical of your own reasoning because you're aware of your own biases and fallibility. Be a good scientist and be open to being wrong. This just seems like a generic advice to me which is theoretically applicable to everyone. Is there any evidence of effective altruists not doing that, or this being specifically a problem with "really-smart-person"s? >No, they don't trust that you can scale the concept of "food banks are more effective than I am" to any kind of maximization. You can still donate to worthy causes and effective organizations. I'm not quite understanding what you're arguing for here. Are you saying that you disagree with effective altruists' assessment that you should be funding malaria nets in africa or whatever (ie. what they want you to do), rather than donating to local food banks (ie. what you want to do)? >Yeah, basically. Giving is more helpful than not giving, so even a non-maximalist approach is better than nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good, aim for good. To be clear, you're arguing for donating for whatever your gut tells you, rather than trying to maximize benefit?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  > To be clear, you're arguing for donating for whatever your gut tells you, rather than trying to maximize benefit? Yes. Don't overthink it and end up trying to colonize Mars instead of buying the homeless guy down the street a sandwich.
  - gruez 4y ago
    But where do you draw the line at "overthinking"? I agree that "don't help the homeless guy down the street in favor of funding AI alignment research" is a bit unintuitive, but keep in mind that "don't help homeless guy in favor of helping 100 random guys in africa" is also unintuitive (at least to the extent that we needed a whole movement to popularize it). I'm not saying that AI alignment research is actually the most worthwhile cause to fund, but "convincing people to donate to unintuitive, but theoretically greater utility projects" is basically the reason why effective altruism even exists. If people already naturally donated to the highest impact charities rather than donating to their alumni or the local opera house, we wouldn't need EA because that would be the default.
    - parthianshotgun 4y ago
      To quote the movie Stalker, 'My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?'
- deleted 4y ago
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gruez 4y ago

>It's simple really: just be skeptical of your own reasoning because you're aware of your own biases and fallibility. Be a good scientist and be open to being wrong. This just seems like a generic advice to me which is theoretically applicable to everyone. Is there any evidence of effective altruists not doing that, or this being specifically a problem with "really-smart-person"s? >No, they don't trust that you can scale the concept of "food banks are more effective than I am" to any kind of maximization. You can still donate to worthy causes and effective organizations. I'm not quite understanding what you're arguing for here. Are you saying that you disagree with effective altruists' assessment that you should be funding malaria nets in africa or whatever (ie. what they want you to do), rather than donating to local food banks (ie. what you want to do)? >Yeah, basically. Giving is more helpful than not giving, so even a non-maximalist approach is better than nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good, aim for good. To be clear, you're arguing for donating for whatever your gut tells you, rather than trying to maximize benefit?

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
> To be clear, you're arguing for donating for whatever your gut tells you, rather than trying to maximize benefit? Yes. Don't overthink it and end up trying to colonize Mars instead of buying the homeless guy down the street a sandwich.
- gruez 4y ago
  But where do you draw the line at "overthinking"? I agree that "don't help the homeless guy down the street in favor of funding AI alignment research" is a bit unintuitive, but keep in mind that "don't help homeless guy in favor of helping 100 random guys in africa" is also unintuitive (at least to the extent that we needed a whole movement to popularize it). I'm not saying that AI alignment research is actually the most worthwhile cause to fund, but "convincing people to donate to unintuitive, but theoretically greater utility projects" is basically the reason why effective altruism even exists. If people already naturally donated to the highest impact charities rather than donating to their alumni or the local opera house, we wouldn't need EA because that would be the default.
  - parthianshotgun 4y ago
    To quote the movie Stalker, 'My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?'
deleted 4y ago
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