Fellow effective altruists and other people who care about making things better, especially those of you who mostly care about minimising suffering: how do you stay motivated in the face of the possibility of infinities, or even just the vast numbers of morally relevant beings outside our reach?
I get that it’s pretty silly to get so distressed over issues there’s nothing I can do about, but I can’t help feeling discouraged when I think about the vast amount of suffering that probably exists—I mean, it doesn’t even have to be infinite to feel like a bottomless pit that we’re pretty much hopelessly trying to fill. I have a hard time feeling genuinely happy about good news, like progress in eradicating diseases or reducing world hunger, because intuitively it all feels like such an insignificant part of all the misery that’s going on elsewhere (and in other Everett branches of course, in case the MWI is correct).
I know this is a bit of a noob question and something everyone probably thinks about at some point, which is why I’m hoping to hear what kind of conclusions other people have reached.
I remind myself that I care about each individual that can be helped by my action. Even if there are huge numbers of individuals I can’t help, there are some I CAN help, and helping each one is worthwhile.
Focus on what you are doing, and who you are helping, not who you aren’t. This is a broader problem than just EA too—you could think of all the possible achievements or research or inventions or friendships you could make in your life, and thus any particular string of them is irrelevant. But if you don’t focus on that infinity of great things you could do, you’re able to realize this particular life is pretty great too. Think of it in terms of ‘if I wasn’t here, these particular people would be worse off’ (usually quite a long list, even for non-EAs—friends, family, colleagues you help out etc.) and your contribution seems a lot more important :-) After all, you’re only one person of that infinity, so if you help more than one person considerably you’ve actually made a big (relative to you) contribution.
Fellow effective altruists and other people who care about making things better, especially those of you who mostly care about minimising suffering: how do you stay motivated in the face of the possibility of infinities, or even just the vast numbers of morally relevant beings outside our reach?
I get that it’s pretty silly to get so distressed over issues there’s nothing I can do about, but I can’t help feeling discouraged when I think about the vast amount of suffering that probably exists—I mean, it doesn’t even have to be infinite to feel like a bottomless pit that we’re pretty much hopelessly trying to fill. I have a hard time feeling genuinely happy about good news, like progress in eradicating diseases or reducing world hunger, because intuitively it all feels like such an insignificant part of all the misery that’s going on elsewhere (and in other Everett branches of course, in case the MWI is correct).
I know this is a bit of a noob question and something everyone probably thinks about at some point, which is why I’m hoping to hear what kind of conclusions other people have reached.
I remind myself that I care about each individual that can be helped by my action. Even if there are huge numbers of individuals I can’t help, there are some I CAN help, and helping each one is worthwhile.
Pretty much this.
Focus on what you are doing, and who you are helping, not who you aren’t. This is a broader problem than just EA too—you could think of all the possible achievements or research or inventions or friendships you could make in your life, and thus any particular string of them is irrelevant. But if you don’t focus on that infinity of great things you could do, you’re able to realize this particular life is pretty great too. Think of it in terms of ‘if I wasn’t here, these particular people would be worse off’ (usually quite a long list, even for non-EAs—friends, family, colleagues you help out etc.) and your contribution seems a lot more important :-) After all, you’re only one person of that infinity, so if you help more than one person considerably you’ve actually made a big (relative to you) contribution.