“though probably most of my effort was on relatively useless rather ordinary do-gooder projects”
Aleksei, “ordinary do-gooder projects” are relatively useless. That is, they are multiple orders of magnitude less efficient at global expected-goodness production than well thought out efforts to reduce existentialrisks. If you somehow ignore existential risks, “ordinary do-gooder projects” are even orders of magnitude less efficient than the better charities working on current human welfare, as analyzed by Givewell or by the Copenhagen Consensus.
Enjoy your life, and don’t feel guilty if you don’t feel guilty; but if you do want to increase the odds that anything of value survives in this corner of the universe, don’t focus on managing to give up more of your current pleasure. Focus on how efficiently you use whatever time/money/influence you are putting toward global goodness. Someone who spends seven ten-thousandths of their time earning money to donate to SIAI does ridiculously more good than someone who spends 90% of their time being a Good Person at an ordinary charity. (They have more time left-over to enjoy themselves, too.)
Aagh! How did I never notice this comment until now?! I would have lived to have started internalizing this back in 2009. As it is I got to a similar place at last weekend’s CFAR NY workshop.
“though probably most of my effort was on relatively useless rather ordinary do-gooder projects”
Aleksei, “ordinary do-gooder projects” are relatively useless. That is, they are multiple orders of magnitude less efficient at global expected-goodness production than well thought out efforts to reduce existential risks. If you somehow ignore existential risks, “ordinary do-gooder projects” are even orders of magnitude less efficient than the better charities working on current human welfare, as analyzed by Givewell or by the Copenhagen Consensus.
Enjoy your life, and don’t feel guilty if you don’t feel guilty; but if you do want to increase the odds that anything of value survives in this corner of the universe, don’t focus on managing to give up more of your current pleasure. Focus on how efficiently you use whatever time/money/influence you are putting toward global goodness. Someone who spends seven ten-thousandths of their time earning money to donate to SIAI does ridiculously more good than someone who spends 90% of their time being a Good Person at an ordinary charity. (They have more time left-over to enjoy themselves, too.)
Aagh! How did I never notice this comment until now?! I would have lived to have started internalizing this back in 2009. As it is I got to a similar place at last weekend’s CFAR NY workshop.