4 ms·

The flaw in this is right here, "There is this very, very old puzzle/observation in economics about the lawyer who spends an hour volunteering at the soup kitch

by btilly 3y ago

The flaw in this is right here, "There is this very, very old puzzle/observation in economics about the lawyer who spends an hour volunteering at the soup kitchen, instead of working an extra hour and donating the money to hire someone to work for five hours at the soup kitchen." The lawyer does not truly spend the hour in the soup kitchen for the purpose of feeding people. But rather for what the lawyer gets out of spending that hour. Things like motivation and understanding the problem better. Here is a concrete illustration of the principle. Back in the 1960s, Robert Townsend made it a requirement at Avis that everyone had to work a certain amount of time each year behind the service desk. Having vice presidents do that work was certainly not cheaper than hiring a random person to do it. But having vice presidents be directly aware of where the problems were in that job was in the long run far cheaper than letting them remain unaware and therefore not fixing the problems. This is not what Robert Townsend is best known for though. He's known for having come in to a failing company, and turning it around. In particular he is the CEO under whom the slogan "We try harder" was begun. A slogan that, incidentally, was produced by his inspiring the ad people to try harder themselves! He tells the story in his book Up The Organization! He didn't have a big ad budget. So he asked how he could best motivate the ad people to work on his account. A friend advised him that what they really most wanted was creative freedom. So he told them that he'd accept whatever they said was their best idea, sight unseen. This is why they dared come up with a slogan that undermined standard assumptions about how to do business - and it worked!

rcoveson 3y ago
That comparison doesn't work unless the lawyer is also donating lawyer-work to the soup kitchen, either directly or indirectly (with money earned). Then you could say the time at the soup kitchen is for the sake of motivation and understanding, as is the case with the mandatory time behind the Avis service desk. But if the lawyer is doing the volunteer manual labor hour instead of donating the much more valuable specialized work hour, then it's nothing like the Avis example.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  Right it's not mutually exclusive, but they are suggesting that the donation potential would be higher if they chose to work overtime instead of volunteering. This could only matter if said lawyer was attempting to maximize the dollars donated - no one does this anyway. And scarcely you'd find someone motivated to work lots of overtime (why have an arbitrary number of 1 hour?) just to give it all away immediately. People have more than one incentive and desire in play. The "utility-maximizing" choice, if both "effectiveness" and "feeling good" matters, would be to donate whatever one cares to and volunteer as much as one cares to.
Tyr42 3y ago
LessWrong might call that motivation the lawyer gets from working directly in the kitchen WarmFuzzies to contrast with the hard utils of working and donating. There's even some advice to make sure you get your quota of warm fuzzies to stay motivated and connected with the cause you are working for. It's easier to burn out if you never see the upside of your efforts or the smile on people's faces directly. However they are different things. Don't also forget to uh how do they say it.... "Shut up and multiply" I think and figure out what advances your cause the most. (While including enough direct touches to stay sane as otherwise you are less effective) Though I don't often see the finding problems case stated. That is important too.
YellOh 3y ago
I don't think that's a flaw; that's addressed in the very next essay in the sequence, titled "Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately."[0] The idea is that if you're a lawyer that's trying to do maximum good, food kitchen work is a very poor trade for you. But if you're trying to get a warm fuzzy feeling, working in a soup kitchen may be pretty effective. Purchasing warm fuzzies is sometimes efficient (from an emotional or long-term mental health perspective), even though it's very inefficient at doing good directly. But ideally you should be able to be honest with yourself about what it is you're actually buying with that hour. [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f...
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  The problem is that whether or the lawyer is attempting to buy warm fuzzies or understand other people is reliant on internal state of the lawyer. As external observers, we can only hypothesize based clues. Sometimes I do my own drywall work at my house. Not because it's more efficient (it'd be better to hire someone) but because I enjoy it in this sort of zen way. That's a really weird abstract sort of reasoning that utility calculations can't capture well. If the lawyer works in the soup kitchen because the rest of their time is spent around rich people and they want to better understand the whole of human experience, that also can't be factored into the utility calculus.
  - YellOh 3y ago
    The reason it's a puzzle is because most people, usually including the lawyer themself, assumes soup kitchen volunteers are volunteering for the purpose of helping others. If the primary purpose of the hour volunteering is not to bring maximum good to others but instead to enjoy the hour or socialize, then the hour may be spent efficiently for the lawyer, but it is not pursuing the primary purpose of "caring for others' good." Any (functional) utility calculation does take into account internal state & knowledge gained. Pretty much by definition, utilons are internal-only. The lawyer's enjoyment of the hour is factored in; however, if the point of the hour is to maximize total utility across all humans, the lawyer would be better to spend an extra hour at work (unless soup kitchen work provides a large enough multiplier to mental health, or they wouldn't be motivated to do lawyer work without the hour at the soup kitchen). Even in cases where soup kitchen work is better in the long-haul, those hours in the soup kitchen are spent buying fuzzies, not utilons directly. This only works from a utilitarian perspective. If the lawyer getting maximal enjoyment from their good is more important than the amount of good produced, then soup kitchening will ~always be more effective, but you're no longer engaging with the core philosophy of the essay.
slothtrop 3y ago
It's sensory. People prefer to volunteer in person because we're social beings that crave validation and contact, and enjoy being closer to the metal with altruism. Receiving gratitude also feels good, and there's something to be said for desiring to spend surplus leisure time taking action in some form or another. At any rate there's no mutual exclusivity between donating and volunteering, and no one really follows an imperative to absolutely maximize the dollar amount they could donate (no one making money, anyway). I suspect that very few are particularly motivated to work overtime hours just to give it all away.
minkzilla 3y ago
There are two other aspects I can think of as well. One is that burnout in work. I don’t think I could work 2-4 hours more a week for years without massive diminishing returns. Volunteering building homes is a positive use of my time for others and help me not burnout so I can keep doing both! The other and more important is relationships. I could work more and get payed more (I’m salaried so I wouldn’t actually be payed more but hypothetically if I did) and donate that for someone to build homes but it changes the dynamic of relationship and I’m missing from it. I’ve advised people I’ve worked with and for on college, software, or even just how home loans work. And the fact I’m doing all this for free for them is meaningful for both of us, probably even more so than a mediocre handrail I added to the stairway

by btilly 3y ago

rcoveson 3y ago

That comparison doesn't work unless the lawyer is also donating lawyer-work to the soup kitchen, either directly or indirectly (with money earned). Then you could say the time at the soup kitchen is for the sake of motivation and understanding, as is the case with the mandatory time behind the Avis service desk. But if the lawyer is doing the volunteer manual labor hour instead of donating the much more valuable specialized work hour, then it's nothing like the Avis example.

slothtrop 3y ago
Right it's not mutually exclusive, but they are suggesting that the donation potential would be higher if they chose to work overtime instead of volunteering. This could only matter if said lawyer was attempting to maximize the dollars donated - no one does this anyway. And scarcely you'd find someone motivated to work lots of overtime (why have an arbitrary number of 1 hour?) just to give it all away immediately. People have more than one incentive and desire in play. The "utility-maximizing" choice, if both "effectiveness" and "feeling good" matters, would be to donate whatever one cares to and volunteer as much as one cares to.

Tyr42 3y ago

LessWrong might call that motivation the lawyer gets from working directly in the kitchen WarmFuzzies to contrast with the hard utils of working and donating. There's even some advice to make sure you get your quota of warm fuzzies to stay motivated and connected with the cause you are working for. It's easier to burn out if you never see the upside of your efforts or the smile on people's faces directly. However they are different things. Don't also forget to uh how do they say it.... "Shut up and multiply" I think and figure out what advances your cause the most. (While including enough direct touches to stay sane as otherwise you are less effective) Though I don't often see the finding problems case stated. That is important too.

YellOh 3y ago

I don't think that's a flaw; that's addressed in the very next essay in the sequence, titled "Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately."[0] The idea is that if you're a lawyer that's trying to do maximum good, food kitchen work is a very poor trade for you. But if you're trying to get a warm fuzzy feeling, working in a soup kitchen may be pretty effective. Purchasing warm fuzzies is sometimes efficient (from an emotional or long-term mental health perspective), even though it's very inefficient at doing good directly. But ideally you should be able to be honest with yourself about what it is you're actually buying with that hour. [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f...

vorpalhex 3y ago
The problem is that whether or the lawyer is attempting to buy warm fuzzies or understand other people is reliant on internal state of the lawyer. As external observers, we can only hypothesize based clues. Sometimes I do my own drywall work at my house. Not because it's more efficient (it'd be better to hire someone) but because I enjoy it in this sort of zen way. That's a really weird abstract sort of reasoning that utility calculations can't capture well. If the lawyer works in the soup kitchen because the rest of their time is spent around rich people and they want to better understand the whole of human experience, that also can't be factored into the utility calculus.
- YellOh 3y ago
  The reason it's a puzzle is because most people, usually including the lawyer themself, assumes soup kitchen volunteers are volunteering for the purpose of helping others. If the primary purpose of the hour volunteering is not to bring maximum good to others but instead to enjoy the hour or socialize, then the hour may be spent efficiently for the lawyer, but it is not pursuing the primary purpose of "caring for others' good." Any (functional) utility calculation does take into account internal state & knowledge gained. Pretty much by definition, utilons are internal-only. The lawyer's enjoyment of the hour is factored in; however, if the point of the hour is to maximize total utility across all humans, the lawyer would be better to spend an extra hour at work (unless soup kitchen work provides a large enough multiplier to mental health, or they wouldn't be motivated to do lawyer work without the hour at the soup kitchen). Even in cases where soup kitchen work is better in the long-haul, those hours in the soup kitchen are spent buying fuzzies, not utilons directly. This only works from a utilitarian perspective. If the lawyer getting maximal enjoyment from their good is more important than the amount of good produced, then soup kitchening will ~always be more effective, but you're no longer engaging with the core philosophy of the essay.

slothtrop 3y ago

It's sensory. People prefer to volunteer in person because we're social beings that crave validation and contact, and enjoy being closer to the metal with altruism. Receiving gratitude also feels good, and there's something to be said for desiring to spend surplus leisure time taking action in some form or another. At any rate there's no mutual exclusivity between donating and volunteering, and no one really follows an imperative to absolutely maximize the dollar amount they could donate (no one making money, anyway). I suspect that very few are particularly motivated to work overtime hours just to give it all away.

minkzilla 3y ago

There are two other aspects I can think of as well. One is that burnout in work. I don’t think I could work 2-4 hours more a week for years without massive diminishing returns. Volunteering building homes is a positive use of my time for others and help me not burnout so I can keep doing both! The other and more important is relationships. I could work more and get payed more (I’m salaried so I wouldn’t actually be payed more but hypothetically if I did) and donate that for someone to build homes but it changes the dynamic of relationship and I’m missing from it. I’ve advised people I’ve worked with and for on college, software, or even just how home loans work. And the fact I’m doing all this for free for them is meaningful for both of us, probably even more so than a mediocre handrail I added to the stairway