Well, the “dark arts” might deserve a second look.
We shouldn’t pivot too far. Politics clearly is a mind-killer, and exploiting human weaknesses to further your cause is not inherently good.
But I think we have grouped too many things into one basket. In order for rationality to succeed, we must manage to find the balance between being effective and being pure in our ideals.
We do not want to be the stereotypical investment banker, without any morals who will do whatever works. Yet we also don’t want to be the environmentalist who don’t do anything that works, because people should just care about the environment.
Instead, I think, we need to be a bit nuanced with what works. Some actions work and are clearly immoral—like lying. Others work and are not in conflict with any value, like making people feel good.
I think a good model for this is Elon Musk. He seems to be as idealistic as is possible within a framework of getting things done. He does not lie, but he does care a lot about building a good product, for example, unlike a lot of other enviromentalist entrepreneurs.
So I think we need to open this conversation.
What is effective to influencing people?
What is effective towards garnering resources to a cause?
What is effective in capturing people’s attention?
And then when we have the answers, and the details of the strategies, then we can compare them against our values and rule out the ones that are in direct conflict.
Well, the “dark arts” might deserve a second look.
We shouldn’t pivot too far. Politics clearly is a mind-killer, and exploiting human weaknesses to further your cause is not inherently good.
But I think we have grouped too many things into one basket. In order for rationality to succeed, we must manage to find the balance between being effective and being pure in our ideals.
We do not want to be the stereotypical investment banker, without any morals who will do whatever works. Yet we also don’t want to be the environmentalist who don’t do anything that works, because people should just care about the environment.
Instead, I think, we need to be a bit nuanced with what works. Some actions work and are clearly immoral—like lying. Others work and are not in conflict with any value, like making people feel good.
I think a good model for this is Elon Musk. He seems to be as idealistic as is possible within a framework of getting things done. He does not lie, but he does care a lot about building a good product, for example, unlike a lot of other enviromentalist entrepreneurs.
So I think we need to open this conversation. What is effective to influencing people? What is effective towards garnering resources to a cause? What is effective in capturing people’s attention?
And then when we have the answers, and the details of the strategies, then we can compare them against our values and rule out the ones that are in direct conflict.