I’m noticing it’s hard to engage with this post because… well, if I observed this in a real conversation, my main hypothesis would be that Alice has a bunch of internal conflict and guilt that she’s taking out on Bob, and the conversation is not really about Bob at all. (In particular, the line “That kind of seems like a you problem, not a me problem” seems like a strong indicator of this.)
So maybe I’ll just register that both Alice and Bob seem confused in a bunch of ways, and if the point of the post is “here are two different ways you can be confused” then I guess that makes sense, but if the point of the post is “okay, so why is Alice wrong?” then… well, Alice herself doesn’t even seem to really know what her position is, since it’s constantly shifting throughout the post, so it’s hard to answer that (although Holden’s “maximization is perilous” post is a good start).
Relatedly: I don’t think it’s an accident that the first request Alice makes of Bob (donate that money rather than getting takeout tonight) is far more optimized for signalling ingroup status than for actually doing good.
I’m noticing it’s hard to engage with this post because… well, if I observed this in a real conversation, my main hypothesis would be that Alice has a bunch of internal conflict and guilt that she’s taking out on Bob, and the conversation is not really about Bob at all. (In particular, the line “That kind of seems like a you problem, not a me problem” seems like a strong indicator of this.)
So maybe I’ll just register that both Alice and Bob seem confused in a bunch of ways, and if the point of the post is “here are two different ways you can be confused” then I guess that makes sense, but if the point of the post is “okay, so why is Alice wrong?” then… well, Alice herself doesn’t even seem to really know what her position is, since it’s constantly shifting throughout the post, so it’s hard to answer that (although Holden’s “maximization is perilous” post is a good start).
Relatedly: I don’t think it’s an accident that the first request Alice makes of Bob (donate that money rather than getting takeout tonight) is far more optimized for signalling ingroup status than for actually doing good.