I thought of it as a New Years blessing. Someone might say “Wishing a happy new year to you and your family & friends” and I kinda wanted to work with that a bit and expand it (and restate it in jargon for fun).
Like, wanting things to go well for your family & friends is fine, but being empowered to cause them to go well is even better. And “family & friends” is one sort of circle of moral concern; but around here maybe the reader is concerned about humanity or animals or lifekind or all sentient beings, so “your friends & family” could easily be too narrow. I also did want to include that applied compassion towards yourself is part of it; “put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others” and all.
But yeah, for things to actually go well (+utility), it’s not enough to be benevolent (compassion), you also have to have some power (agency) to cause your benevolence to have some effect. (And I really liked @anaguma’s followup.)
I thought of it as a New Years blessing. Someone might say “Wishing a happy new year to you and your family & friends” and I kinda wanted to work with that a bit and expand it (and restate it in jargon for fun).
Like, wanting things to go well for your family & friends is fine, but being empowered to cause them to go well is even better. And “family & friends” is one sort of circle of moral concern; but around here maybe the reader is concerned about humanity or animals or lifekind or all sentient beings, so “your friends & family” could easily be too narrow. I also did want to include that applied compassion towards yourself is part of it; “put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others” and all.
But yeah, for things to actually go well (+utility), it’s not enough to be benevolent (compassion), you also have to have some power (agency) to cause your benevolence to have some effect. (And I really liked @anaguma’s followup.)