While it may not be the point of the exercise, from examining the situation, it appears that the best course of action would be to attempt to convert as many people in Rationalistland as possible to altruism. The reason I find this interesting is because it mirrors real world behavior of many rationalists. There are a bevy of resources for effective altruism, discussions on optimizing the world based on an altruistic view, and numerous discussions which simply assume altruism in their construction. Very little exists in the way of openly discussing optimal egoism. As an egoist myself, I find this to be a perfectly acceptable situation, as it is beneficial for me if more people who aren’t me or are in groups that do not include me become altruistic or become more effective at being altruistic.
Taboo “altruism” and “egoism”. Those words in their original meaning are merely strawmen. Everyone cares about other people (except for psychopaths, but psychopaths are also bad at optimizing for their own long-term utility). Everyone cares about their own utility (even Mother Theresa was happy to get a lot of prestige for herself, and to promote her favorite religion). In real life, speaking about altruists and egoists is probably just speaking about signalling… who spends a lot of time announcing that they care about other people (regardless of what they really do for them), and who neglects this part of signalling (regardless of what they really do). Or sometimes it is merely about whom we like and whom we don’t.
I had no intention of implying extreme altruism or egoism. I should be clear that by altruism I mean the case in which an agent believes that the values of of some other entity or group have a smaller discount rate than those of the agent itself, while egoism is the opposite scenario. I describe myself as an egoist, but this does not mean that I am completely indifferent to others. In the real world, one would not describe a person who engages in altruist signalling as an altruist, but rather that person would choose the label of altruist as a form of signalling.
Either way, returning to the topic at hand with the taboo in effect, those who value the continuation of their society as a greater value than personal survival will be willing to accept greater risks to their own life to improve the chances of victory at war. Likewise those who consider their own survival more highly, even if they expect that loss in war may endanger their life, will choose actions that are less risky to themselves even if it is a less advantageous action for the group. By attempting to modify the values of other to place greater weight on society over the individual, and by providing evidence which makes pro-social actions seems more appealing ,such as by making them appear less risky to the self, one can improve the probability of victory and improve the chance of personal survival. Of course if everyone were engaging in this behavior, and we assume equal skills and resources amongst all parties, there would either be no net effect on the utility values of agents within the group, or a general trend toward greater pro-social behavior would form, depending on what level of skill and susceptibility we assume. This is a positive outcome as the very act of researching and distributing the information required would create greater net resources in terms of knowledge and strategy for effectively contributing to the war effort.
While it may not be the point of the exercise, from examining the situation, it appears that the best course of action would be to attempt to convert as many people in Rationalistland as possible to altruism. The reason I find this interesting is because it mirrors real world behavior of many rationalists. There are a bevy of resources for effective altruism, discussions on optimizing the world based on an altruistic view, and numerous discussions which simply assume altruism in their construction. Very little exists in the way of openly discussing optimal egoism. As an egoist myself, I find this to be a perfectly acceptable situation, as it is beneficial for me if more people who aren’t me or are in groups that do not include me become altruistic or become more effective at being altruistic.
Taboo “altruism” and “egoism”. Those words in their original meaning are merely strawmen. Everyone cares about other people (except for psychopaths, but psychopaths are also bad at optimizing for their own long-term utility). Everyone cares about their own utility (even Mother Theresa was happy to get a lot of prestige for herself, and to promote her favorite religion). In real life, speaking about altruists and egoists is probably just speaking about signalling… who spends a lot of time announcing that they care about other people (regardless of what they really do for them), and who neglects this part of signalling (regardless of what they really do). Or sometimes it is merely about whom we like and whom we don’t.
I had no intention of implying extreme altruism or egoism. I should be clear that by altruism I mean the case in which an agent believes that the values of of some other entity or group have a smaller discount rate than those of the agent itself, while egoism is the opposite scenario. I describe myself as an egoist, but this does not mean that I am completely indifferent to others. In the real world, one would not describe a person who engages in altruist signalling as an altruist, but rather that person would choose the label of altruist as a form of signalling.
Either way, returning to the topic at hand with the taboo in effect, those who value the continuation of their society as a greater value than personal survival will be willing to accept greater risks to their own life to improve the chances of victory at war. Likewise those who consider their own survival more highly, even if they expect that loss in war may endanger their life, will choose actions that are less risky to themselves even if it is a less advantageous action for the group. By attempting to modify the values of other to place greater weight on society over the individual, and by providing evidence which makes pro-social actions seems more appealing ,such as by making them appear less risky to the self, one can improve the probability of victory and improve the chance of personal survival. Of course if everyone were engaging in this behavior, and we assume equal skills and resources amongst all parties, there would either be no net effect on the utility values of agents within the group, or a general trend toward greater pro-social behavior would form, depending on what level of skill and susceptibility we assume. This is a positive outcome as the very act of researching and distributing the information required would create greater net resources in terms of knowledge and strategy for effectively contributing to the war effort.