I was intuitively thinking of “the expected trajectory of the world if I were instead a random person from my reference class”
If you move your zero-point to reflect world-trajectory based on a random person in your reference class, it creates incentives to view the average person in your reference class as less altruistic than they truly are and to unconsciously normalize bad behavior in that class.
That’s a good point. On the other hand, many people make their reference class the most impressive one they belong to rather than the least impressive one. (At least I did, when I was in academia; I may have been excellent in mathematics within many sets of people, but among the reference class “math faculty at a good institution” I was struggling to feel okay.) Impostor syndrome makes this doubly bad, if the people in one’s reference class who are struggling don’t make that fact visible.
There are two opposite pieces of advice here, and I don’t know how to tell people which is true for them- if anything, I think they might gravitate to the wrong piece of advice, since they’re already biased in that direction.
That’s a good point. On the other hand, many people make their reference class the most impressive one they belong to rather than the least impressive one. (At least I did, when I was in academia; I may have been excellent in mathematics within many sets of people, but among the reference class “math faculty at a good institution” I was struggling to feel okay.)
Ah, understandable. I felt a similar way back when I was doing materials engineering—and I admit I put a lot of work into figuring out how to connect my research with doing good before I moved on from that. I think that when you’re working on something you’re passionate about, you’re much more likely to try to connect it to making a big positive impact and to convince yourself that your coworkers are making a big positive impact.
That being said, I think it’s important to distinguish impressiveness from ethical significance and to recognize that impressiveness itself is a personally-selected free variable. If I described myself as a very skilled computational researcher (more impressive), I’d feel very good about my ethical performance relative to my reference class. But if I described myself as a financially blessed rationalist (less impressive), I’d feel rather bad.
There are two opposite pieces of advice here, and I don’t know how to tell people which is true for them- if anything, I think they might gravitate to the wrong piece of advice, since they’re already biased in that direction.
In any case, I agree with you at the object level with respect to academia. Because academic research is often a passion project, and we prefer our passions to be ethically significant, and academic culture is particularly conducive to imposter syndrome, overestimating the ethical contributions of our corresponding academic reference class is pretty likely. Now that I’m EtG in finance, the environmental consequences are different.
Actually, how about this—instead of benchmarking against a world where you’re a random member of your reference class, you just benchmark against the world where you don’t exist at all? It might be more lax than benchmarking against a member of your reference-class in cases where your reference class is doing good things but it also protects you from unnecessary ethical anguish caused by social distortions like imposter syndrome. Also, since we really want to believe that our existences are valuable anyway, it probably won’t incentivize any psychological shenanigans we aren’t already incentivized to do.
If you move your zero-point to reflect world-trajectory based on a random person in your reference class, it creates incentives to view the average person in your reference class as less altruistic than they truly are and to unconsciously normalize bad behavior in that class.
That’s a good point. On the other hand, many people make their reference class the most impressive one they belong to rather than the least impressive one. (At least I did, when I was in academia; I may have been excellent in mathematics within many sets of people, but among the reference class “math faculty at a good institution” I was struggling to feel okay.) Impostor syndrome makes this doubly bad, if the people in one’s reference class who are struggling don’t make that fact visible.
There are two opposite pieces of advice here, and I don’t know how to tell people which is true for them- if anything, I think they might gravitate to the wrong piece of advice, since they’re already biased in that direction.
Ah, understandable. I felt a similar way back when I was doing materials engineering—and I admit I put a lot of work into figuring out how to connect my research with doing good before I moved on from that. I think that when you’re working on something you’re passionate about, you’re much more likely to try to connect it to making a big positive impact and to convince yourself that your coworkers are making a big positive impact.
That being said, I think it’s important to distinguish impressiveness from ethical significance and to recognize that impressiveness itself is a personally-selected free variable. If I described myself as a very skilled computational researcher (more impressive), I’d feel very good about my ethical performance relative to my reference class. But if I described myself as a financially blessed rationalist (less impressive), I’d feel rather bad.
In any case, I agree with you at the object level with respect to academia. Because academic research is often a passion project, and we prefer our passions to be ethically significant, and academic culture is particularly conducive to imposter syndrome, overestimating the ethical contributions of our corresponding academic reference class is pretty likely. Now that I’m EtG in finance, the environmental consequences are different.
Actually, how about this—instead of benchmarking against a world where you’re a random member of your reference class, you just benchmark against the world where you don’t exist at all? It might be more lax than benchmarking against a member of your reference-class in cases where your reference class is doing good things but it also protects you from unnecessary ethical anguish caused by social distortions like imposter syndrome. Also, since we really want to believe that our existences are valuable anyway, it probably won’t incentivize any psychological shenanigans we aren’t already incentivized to do.