Musk is sort of interesting because when he explains why he doesn’t donate to charity, he justifies it by saying that building his companies will be a larger benefit to humanity. This would be an unacceptable to answer to Rand because she would say this implies he feels a kind of indebtedness to ‘humanity’ and he is not acting purely for his own “rational self-interest”. A Randian hero would say something like “because I want to”. I find it hard to pin him as either “maximalist-utilitarian-but-I-don’t-like-the-EA-causes-and-will-do-my-own-thing” or pure “rational self-interest” egoist.
Maybe I’m speculating too much on Musk’s psychology but it seems to me like being the hero of humanity is part of his own egoism, in that it seems important that he is the one to do it, whereas for EAs for example I don’t think they really care about the glory of being “the guy” who aligns the AGI or whatever.
Musk is sort of interesting because when he explains why he doesn’t donate to charity, he justifies it by saying that building his companies will be a larger benefit to humanity. This would be an unacceptable to answer to Rand because she would say this implies he feels a kind of indebtedness to ‘humanity’ and he is not acting purely for his own “rational self-interest”. A Randian hero would say something like “because I want to”. I find it hard to pin him as either “maximalist-utilitarian-but-I-don’t-like-the-EA-causes-and-will-do-my-own-thing” or pure “rational self-interest” egoist.
Maybe I’m speculating too much on Musk’s psychology but it seems to me like being the hero of humanity is part of his own egoism, in that it seems important that he is the one to do it, whereas for EAs for example I don’t think they really care about the glory of being “the guy” who aligns the AGI or whatever.