Aren’t you dividing twice there, since you: 1) single out a stranger (thus dividing the amount you care about the average stranger by their number) 2) then apply Hendricks central number to that stranger (where now you should be applying the pooled number, since you’re already ignoring all the other group members)
So I think this in fact pretty close to your intuition if interpreted correctly (you say 1e-3, Hendricks says 1e-2).
i don’t understand what you mean. the central column is saying i should care about myself 0.576 much, and Bob from Randomland 1.6e-12 much. where am I dividing twice?
my version of this table would say 1e-7 for self and 1e-10 for random person; the crux of my argument is that the ratio between the two is vastly more important than the absolute fraction of your caring a stranger occupies.
If I understand Hendryck’s logic here, then caring 1/1000 as much about a random stranger as about yourself, means you care several million times more about all random strangers combined than about yourself, which you don’t seem to be saying?
not OP, but that seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion. if i had to sacrifice my own life to save every person i didn’t personally know (ie. 8.1 billion people), i would absolutely do it in a heartbeat. i would also do it to just save a fraction of those people (8M people). once it starts getting down to much smaller fractions (saving 100-3 random people) does it start seeming like a hard tradeoff.
Sorry to be edgy, but, there are situations with options to sacrifice more than your life. I bet you have that limit. It’s just higher than your life.
Another point here, is that people are not that unified over time? Like, you can press some button that all subsequent yous would sincerely curse you for. Nooooo, the infinite torture dimension turned out to be a bit much! quote from pretty selfless human.
i agree that i would rather die instantly than live for 100 years of torture. i don’t think that proves as much as you think. i also think it’s fine for some people to make morbid utility calculations like these, and for others to say “i don’t want to think about that and i’m not going to answer”
Well, sure. You are fine with thinking about sacrificing your life and proudly announcing that, but anything more is too much to even talk about? Morbid calculations for me but not for thee
I just think you are wrong on your self model here. Like, I’m doubtful you would be able to like even saw your hand off without anesthesia, and it’s not any years of torture, it’s like 10 minutes of mild torture. A lot of people would bail on this, including me, and you are claiming what, to be unusually willing to sacrifice stuff, up from the prior?
not a lot of people (maybe literally 0) have had sufficient reason to saw off their own hand for altruistic reasons. i’ve donated a kidney, donate blood often, and gave more than the GWWC pledge when my income was high. any falsifiable claims you’d like to check while we’re speculating about my values?
my point is that % of caring is not a coherent concept, or at least not the one that maps onto the intuitive notion of what % of your wealth you should donate.
specifically, suppose instead of there being 1e10 people, there were 1e100 people. i claim the % of your money you should donate should basically not change at all, even though the % of caring assigned to yourself has plummeted by a huge amount
Aren’t you dividing twice there, since you:
1) single out a stranger (thus dividing the amount you care about the average stranger by their number)
2) then apply Hendricks central number to that stranger (where now you should be applying the pooled number, since you’re already ignoring all the other group members)
So I think this in fact pretty close to your intuition if interpreted correctly (you say 1e-3, Hendricks says 1e-2).
i don’t understand what you mean. the central column is saying i should care about myself 0.576 much, and Bob from Randomland 1.6e-12 much. where am I dividing twice?
my version of this table would say 1e-7 for self and 1e-10 for random person; the crux of my argument is that the ratio between the two is vastly more important than the absolute fraction of your caring a stranger occupies.
If I understand Hendryck’s logic here, then caring 1/1000 as much about a random stranger as about yourself, means you care several million times more about all random strangers combined than about yourself, which you don’t seem to be saying?
not OP, but that seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion. if i had to sacrifice my own life to save every person i didn’t personally know (ie. 8.1 billion people), i would absolutely do it in a heartbeat. i would also do it to just save a fraction of those people (8M people). once it starts getting down to much smaller fractions (saving 100-3 random people) does it start seeming like a hard tradeoff.
Sorry to be edgy, but, there are situations with options to sacrifice more than your life. I bet you have that limit. It’s just higher than your life.
Another point here, is that people are not that unified over time? Like, you can press some button that all subsequent yous would sincerely curse you for. Nooooo, the infinite torture dimension turned out to be a bit much! quote from pretty selfless human.
i agree that i would rather die instantly than live for 100 years of torture. i don’t think that proves as much as you think. i also think it’s fine for some people to make morbid utility calculations like these, and for others to say “i don’t want to think about that and i’m not going to answer”
Well, sure. You are fine with thinking about sacrificing your life and proudly announcing that, but anything more is too much to even talk about? Morbid calculations for me but not for thee
I just think you are wrong on your self model here. Like, I’m doubtful you would be able to like even saw your hand off without anesthesia, and it’s not any years of torture, it’s like 10 minutes of mild torture. A lot of people would bail on this, including me, and you are claiming what, to be unusually willing to sacrifice stuff, up from the prior?
Be less wrong etc
not a lot of people (maybe literally 0) have had sufficient reason to saw off their own hand for altruistic reasons. i’ve donated a kidney, donate blood often, and gave more than the GWWC pledge when my income was high. any falsifiable claims you’d like to check while we’re speculating about my values?
Wow, okay, you are right. You are way up, yeah.
But I still think there are limits, higher for you.
my point is that % of caring is not a coherent concept, or at least not the one that maps onto the intuitive notion of what % of your wealth you should donate.
specifically, suppose instead of there being 1e10 people, there were 1e100 people. i claim the % of your money you should donate should basically not change at all, even though the % of caring assigned to yourself has plummeted by a huge amount