To be more explicit: if you truly value all life equally, then trying to act on those beliefs by optimizing the world as efficiently as possible more or less demands that you live in a state of abject, near-starvation poverty, while donating as much as possible to charity. Anything else would mean that you value (for example) a new television over a human life, which most people would call evil if it happened more explicitly. So, your options are either to admit that preference, drop out of the first world by doing the charity thing, or refuse to acknowledge that you are able to change the world to reflect your preferences. I’m saying, somewhat facetiously, that I took the easy way out by simply saying I’m not a preference utilitarian.
Two economists walking down the street toward an ice cream shop. The first economist turns to the second and says, “I really want an ice cream cone.” They keep walking. They walk past the ice cream shop. Halfway down the block, the second economist turns to the first and says “I guess not.”
A lot of people like to make talking noises obviously factually incorrect about their own preferences. “I value everyone’s happiness equally.” What manifest piffle. It’s strange how many people think the world is made a better place by lying to others, and yourself, and what you value.
Strange? Lying to others about what I value is an important part of this nutritious negotiating strategy. Lying to myself lets me lie to others without feeling, or seeming, dishonest. (Indeed, most people will argue that I’m not actually lying at all in this case.) What’s strange about it?
I try to value all life equally, but I also realize that if “living in a state of abject, near-starvation poverty, while donating as much as possible to charity” wouldn’t actually be that helpful. I would probably break down and give up on all this trying to help other people if I took it too far. Even ignoring that, I would probably be much less effective at earning money to donate or convincing other people to do similarly if I were to overly restrict my own consumption.
I admit it would be better if I were to spend less on myself and more on effective charity, but perfect is the enemy of good here. If you’re shocked that people would value TVs over human lives let that motivate you to give what you can, not give up in disgust at our failings.
I would probably break down and give up on all this trying to help other people if I took it too far.
Is that really an acceptable excuse?
I mean, you’re clearly living charitably by choosing Wesleyan levels of consumption, but I don’t think that can be stretched to ‘value all life equally.’ It is just so much easier to turn money into happiness / life / any other ‘fungible’ value in the developing world than the developed world than any reduction in your happiness will probably be more than paid for in happiness increases elsewhere.
(The conclusion I would recommend, of course, is not to abandon your charity or live less well, but to alter your justification to something you actually would endorse taking all the way.)
any reduction in your happiness will probably be more than paid for in happiness increases elsewhere
There is a point at which further reduction in happiness as a result of giving more means that in the long run I am able to give less (I burn out, lose my job, get promoted slower).
I’m not at this point, but I think it’s morally the best place for to be. I’d estimate that my current place, where I spend more on myself and those around me than I should but still give as much as I feel like I can, is about 80% of the way to where I should be [1].
[1] My guess is that the point where further reduction in self-spending also yields reductions in giving ability comes when Julia and I are trying to live on $10K instead of $20K. This would have moved our 2009 giving from $45K to $55K, a 20% improvement.
Yeah, but I’m definitely not anywhere near the point where a mental breakdown is a risk. Hell, I don’t even recycle.
And, sure, you should give what you can (what a phrase, hah!), because that’s better than doing nothing, but in that simple moral light, that doesn’t actually mean we’re not evil. We’re just choosing to ignore it. For our health.
EDIT:
Even ignoring that, I would probably be much less effective at earning money to donate or convincing other people to do similarly if I were to overly restrict my own consumption.
Would just like to point out that this is a false dichotomy. You could restrict your consumption a lot (at least an order of magnitude) without impairing your ability to help others to a significant degree.
You could restrict your consumption a lot (at least an order of magnitude) without impairing your ability to help others to a significant degree
Julia and I live on about $22K and give about $45K (more). An order of magnitude would be going down to ~$2K. I wouldn’t be able to keep my job, which would cut my donations a lot.
that doesn’t actually mean we’re not evil. We’re just choosing to ignore it. For our health.
I interpreted you as saying you ignored the need to help others when now it sounds like you try to ignore that we’re evil not to be doing more. These aren’t the same thing, and I think the second one is a somewhat better way to try to resolve the internal conflict. As long as you don’t resolve it away to the point you care only about the happiness of yourself and people around you.
First, my apologies. I assumed you were significantly closer to the mean than you are.
Second: Well, yes, my expressed preferences are still that I care about other people. My concern is that, based on my behavior, I clearly do not. Or, at least, I care about myself and my loved ones at least dozens-if-not-hundreds of times more.
I assumed you were significantly closer to the mean than you are.
There are people here who take ideas seriously even when this brings them to unsual places. Lesswrong is a strange place.
based on my behavior … I care about myself and my loved ones at least dozens-if-not-hundreds of times more.
As much as I understand I should value the joy and suffering of all people equally, I can’t fully act on it. The happiness of my family and friends, of people around me, feels unavoidably important on a really deep level. I set aside money for my much more generous wife to spend on herself, money that can’t be given away, so that she can have some spending money she doesn’t feel guilty about. I buy presents for my sisters. I pay to go to contra dances. This is only “revealed preference”, however, in as much as it reveals me to be a human, with all the biologically based irrationalities that brings. I would be a better person if I could bring myself to spend all that money on people who need it more, but I don’t let angst over my imperfection keep me from doing my best to help others.
Hm, I don’t find it helpful to analyze whether I’m an evil person. I do think we’d get outcomes I like if we all gave more to effective causes. So I set aside an amount to give, I live on the rest, and I try not to angst about it for the rest of the year. This is a better outcome than having an ugh field around the topic so strong that I end up doing nothing, which seems to be what you’re describing.
I’m going to assume the living in near-starvation and poverty thing is just an example, since that’s almost certainly not the best way to save the most lives (well-nourished humans are more capable humans), and I’ll assume your point was more along the lines of do-as-much-good-as-you-possibly-can-all-the-time.
I think you need to take into account the fact that you’re human. Just because you do something which would seem to imply some weird or evil preference doesn’t mean you need to accept that as your real preference. We are made of faulty hardware.
Faulty as compared to what? I mean, yes, if you assume our expressed preferences are what we really want, then we’re awfully (even spectacularly) bad at achieving them. If you assume that what we really want is survival, comfort, sex, food, and other things that contribute to our own genetic replication, then we’re not faulty at all. We’re actually quite good at optimizing for our actual preferences, even if we do sometimes become convinced that our preferences are something they aren’t.
EDIT: I’m not trying to bring everyone down with first-world angst. This just troubles me. I may simply have to accept that, under my own defintion of the term, I’m just not a particularly good person.
What about this: Just because we have some desires, it does not automatically mean we are good at following them. And vice versa, just because we are not at doing something, it does not mean that we really don’t want it.
For example if I want to eat pizza, but I can’t cook pizza, I can’t convince anyone to cook pizza for me, I cannot find a pizzeria, and I am too dumb to use internet to find anything of this… does it mean that I really don’t want the pizza… or does it just mean that I am bad at getting it in this environment, but in some other environment (where I have a pizza cookbook at home, and a pizzeria is across the street) I could be more successful?
We do not live in our natural environment. I want to help other people, but my evolutionary algorithms suppose that those people live near to me, their needs are transparent to me, and I see an immediate feedback of my help. Without these conditions, my algorithms start breaking.
If you assume that what we really want is survival, comfort, sex, food, and other things that contribute to our own genetic replication, then we’re not faulty at all.
Actually, we are, since we don’t go after even those things very effectively.
Can you explain what you mean here? I’m reading it like this:
But I’m not confident that that’s what you meant.
That’s about the size of it, yeah.
To be more explicit: if you truly value all life equally, then trying to act on those beliefs by optimizing the world as efficiently as possible more or less demands that you live in a state of abject, near-starvation poverty, while donating as much as possible to charity. Anything else would mean that you value (for example) a new television over a human life, which most people would call evil if it happened more explicitly. So, your options are either to admit that preference, drop out of the first world by doing the charity thing, or refuse to acknowledge that you are able to change the world to reflect your preferences. I’m saying, somewhat facetiously, that I took the easy way out by simply saying I’m not a preference utilitarian.
Two economists walking down the street toward an ice cream shop. The first economist turns to the second and says, “I really want an ice cream cone.” They keep walking. They walk past the ice cream shop. Halfway down the block, the second economist turns to the first and says “I guess not.”
A lot of people like to make talking noises obviously factually incorrect about their own preferences. “I value everyone’s happiness equally.” What manifest piffle. It’s strange how many people think the world is made a better place by lying to others, and yourself, and what you value.
Strange?
Lying to others about what I value is an important part of this nutritious negotiating strategy.
Lying to myself lets me lie to others without feeling, or seeming, dishonest. (Indeed, most people will argue that I’m not actually lying at all in this case.)
What’s strange about it?
I try to value all life equally, but I also realize that if “living in a state of abject, near-starvation poverty, while donating as much as possible to charity” wouldn’t actually be that helpful. I would probably break down and give up on all this trying to help other people if I took it too far. Even ignoring that, I would probably be much less effective at earning money to donate or convincing other people to do similarly if I were to overly restrict my own consumption.
I admit it would be better if I were to spend less on myself and more on effective charity, but perfect is the enemy of good here. If you’re shocked that people would value TVs over human lives let that motivate you to give what you can, not give up in disgust at our failings.
Is that really an acceptable excuse?
I mean, you’re clearly living charitably by choosing Wesleyan levels of consumption, but I don’t think that can be stretched to ‘value all life equally.’ It is just so much easier to turn money into happiness / life / any other ‘fungible’ value in the developing world than the developed world than any reduction in your happiness will probably be more than paid for in happiness increases elsewhere.
(The conclusion I would recommend, of course, is not to abandon your charity or live less well, but to alter your justification to something you actually would endorse taking all the way.)
There is a point at which further reduction in happiness as a result of giving more means that in the long run I am able to give less (I burn out, lose my job, get promoted slower).
I’m not at this point, but I think it’s morally the best place for to be. I’d estimate that my current place, where I spend more on myself and those around me than I should but still give as much as I feel like I can, is about 80% of the way to where I should be [1].
[1] My guess is that the point where further reduction in self-spending also yields reductions in giving ability comes when Julia and I are trying to live on $10K instead of $20K. This would have moved our 2009 giving from $45K to $55K, a 20% improvement.
Yeah, but I’m definitely not anywhere near the point where a mental breakdown is a risk. Hell, I don’t even recycle.
And, sure, you should give what you can (what a phrase, hah!), because that’s better than doing nothing, but in that simple moral light, that doesn’t actually mean we’re not evil. We’re just choosing to ignore it. For our health.
EDIT:
Would just like to point out that this is a false dichotomy. You could restrict your consumption a lot (at least an order of magnitude) without impairing your ability to help others to a significant degree.
Julia and I live on about $22K and give about $45K (more). An order of magnitude would be going down to ~$2K. I wouldn’t be able to keep my job, which would cut my donations a lot.
I interpreted you as saying you ignored the need to help others when now it sounds like you try to ignore that we’re evil not to be doing more. These aren’t the same thing, and I think the second one is a somewhat better way to try to resolve the internal conflict. As long as you don’t resolve it away to the point you care only about the happiness of yourself and people around you.
First, my apologies. I assumed you were significantly closer to the mean than you are.
Second: Well, yes, my expressed preferences are still that I care about other people. My concern is that, based on my behavior, I clearly do not. Or, at least, I care about myself and my loved ones at least dozens-if-not-hundreds of times more.
There are people here who take ideas seriously even when this brings them to unsual places. Lesswrong is a strange place.
As much as I understand I should value the joy and suffering of all people equally, I can’t fully act on it. The happiness of my family and friends, of people around me, feels unavoidably important on a really deep level. I set aside money for my much more generous wife to spend on herself, money that can’t be given away, so that she can have some spending money she doesn’t feel guilty about. I buy presents for my sisters. I pay to go to contra dances. This is only “revealed preference”, however, in as much as it reveals me to be a human, with all the biologically based irrationalities that brings. I would be a better person if I could bring myself to spend all that money on people who need it more, but I don’t let angst over my imperfection keep me from doing my best to help others.
Hm, I don’t find it helpful to analyze whether I’m an evil person. I do think we’d get outcomes I like if we all gave more to effective causes. So I set aside an amount to give, I live on the rest, and I try not to angst about it for the rest of the year. This is a better outcome than having an ugh field around the topic so strong that I end up doing nothing, which seems to be what you’re describing.
I’m going to assume the living in near-starvation and poverty thing is just an example, since that’s almost certainly not the best way to save the most lives (well-nourished humans are more capable humans), and I’ll assume your point was more along the lines of do-as-much-good-as-you-possibly-can-all-the-time.
I think you need to take into account the fact that you’re human. Just because you do something which would seem to imply some weird or evil preference doesn’t mean you need to accept that as your real preference. We are made of faulty hardware.
Faulty as compared to what? I mean, yes, if you assume our expressed preferences are what we really want, then we’re awfully (even spectacularly) bad at achieving them. If you assume that what we really want is survival, comfort, sex, food, and other things that contribute to our own genetic replication, then we’re not faulty at all. We’re actually quite good at optimizing for our actual preferences, even if we do sometimes become convinced that our preferences are something they aren’t.
EDIT: I’m not trying to bring everyone down with first-world angst. This just troubles me. I may simply have to accept that, under my own defintion of the term, I’m just not a particularly good person.
What about this: Just because we have some desires, it does not automatically mean we are good at following them. And vice versa, just because we are not at doing something, it does not mean that we really don’t want it.
For example if I want to eat pizza, but I can’t cook pizza, I can’t convince anyone to cook pizza for me, I cannot find a pizzeria, and I am too dumb to use internet to find anything of this… does it mean that I really don’t want the pizza… or does it just mean that I am bad at getting it in this environment, but in some other environment (where I have a pizza cookbook at home, and a pizzeria is across the street) I could be more successful?
We do not live in our natural environment. I want to help other people, but my evolutionary algorithms suppose that those people live near to me, their needs are transparent to me, and I see an immediate feedback of my help. Without these conditions, my algorithms start breaking.
Maybe what you need is not a new you, but a new definition.
This explains what I mean.
Actually, we are, since we don’t go after even those things very effectively.