How would you respond if I said I’m a rationalist, however I don’t feel a strong motivation to make the world a better place?
With just this information, I’d likely say that being an aspiring rationalist doesn’t really have anything to do with your goals, as its mostly about methods of reaching your goals, rather than telling you what your goals should be.
Following it up with this:
To be clear, I do recognize making the world a better place a good thing, I just don’t feel much intrinsic motivation to actually do it.
Confuses me a bit, however.
If one of your goals is making the world a better place (that’s how I’d rephrase the statement: “I do recognize making the world a better place is a good thing,” saying as saying things like “X is good” generally means “X is a desirable state of the world we should strive for), your intrinsic motivation shouldn’t matter one bit.
I have little intrinsic motivation of eating healthy. Preparing food is boring to me and I don’t particularly enjoy eating most healthy things. I still try to eat healthy, because one of my goals is living for a very, very long time.
I guess in part it’s because I expect genuinely trying to improve things (rather than making a token effort) to be a rather difficult and thankless task.
One the one hand: How difficult is it to give 10% (or even 5 or 1 percent, if your income is very low) to an effective charity?
On the other hand: So fucking what? You know how the world becomes a better place? By people doing things that are difficult and thankless because those things need to be done. The world doesn’t become a better place by people sitting around waiting for the brief moment of inspiration in which they sorta want to solve a local problem.
Part of the reason, I think, is that I don’t see myself being able to do something I really don’t enjoy for long enough that it produces meaningful results. So in order for it work, it pretty much has to be something I actually like doing.
This is one of the many reasons why effective altruism works. It allows you to contribute to big problems, while you’re doing something you enjoy and are good at.
(Or we can wait for /u/blacktrance to come in and try to convince you that egoism is the right way to go.)
On the other hand: So fucking what? You know how the world becomes a better place? By people doing things that are difficult and thankless because those things need to be done. The world doesn’t become a better place by people sitting around waiting for the brief moment of inspiration in which they sorta want to solve a local problem.
Historical, isn’t that exactly how the world became a better place? Better technology and better institutions are the ingredients of reduced suffering, and both of these see to have developed by people pursuing solutions to their own (very local) problems, like how to make money and how to stop the government from abusing you. Even scientists who work far upstream of any application seem to be more motivated by curiosity and fame than a desire to reduce global suffering.
Of course, modern wealth disparities may have changed the situation. But we should be clear, if we think that we’ve entered a new historical phase in which the largest future reductions in suffering are going to come from globally-altruistic motivations.
Yes. Richer states can afford to transfer more wealth. We see this in the size of modern (domestic) welfare states, which could not have been shouldered even a century ago.
If one of your goals is making the world a better place (that’s how I’d rephrase the statement: “I do recognize making the world a better place is a good thing,” saying as saying things like “X is good” generally means “X is a desirable state of the world we should strive for), your intrinsic motivation shouldn’t matter one bit.
That’s not exactly what I meant, but nevertheless this is a good point.
On the other hand: So fucking what? You know how the world becomes a better place? By people doing things that are difficult and thankless because those things need to be done. The world doesn’t become a better place by people sitting around waiting for the brief moment of inspiration in which they sorta want to solve a local problem.
Ok, let’s play this out.
As I already said, I have good reason to believe that “should-based” motivation wouldn’t work for me.
So what I’m wondering is, am I allowed to say “due to the way my mind currently works I’m choosing to optimize X by not actively committing to doing X” without running into the “you’re not trying hard enough” kind of argument?
Just because some people do things in a particular way doesn’t mean I can or should to try and do things the same way. It may simply not work for me. This may include thinking in a certain way or having a particular mindset.
So what I’m wondering is, am I allowed to say “due to the way my mind currently works I’m choosing to optimize X by not actively committing to doing X” without running into the “you’re not trying hard enough” kind of argument?
I’d say yes, even if it would only be to prevent worse things.
This might be a similar situation. If you choice is doing nothing vs doing something, doing something is pretty much always better. (Assuming you do useful things, but let’s take that for granted for now.)
If you follow the standard Less Wrong interpretation of utilitarianism, you’re pretty much never doing enough to improve the world. Of course no-one actually holds you to such unreasonable standards, because doing so would be pretty insane. If you tried to be a perfect utility maximizer, you’d end up paralyzed with decision fear, anxiety and/or depression and that doesn’t get us anywhere at all.
Since I’m quoting people, here’s a useful quote to have come out the tumblr rationalists:
Maybe saying “Alright, I’ll give 10% of my income and we call it that,” doesn’t work for you, for whatever reason. Of course you’re allowed to figure out something else that does work for you. That’s what rationality is all about. Reaching your goals, even if the standard approach doesn’t work for me.
That being said, it might still be interesting to see if changing the way your mind works isn’t easier. (It probably isn’t, but just in case...) From what you describe, it sounds like a form of akrasia which you might be able to work around in other ways than a variant of planned procrastination
With just this information, I’d likely say that being an aspiring rationalist doesn’t really have anything to do with your goals, as its mostly about methods of reaching your goals, rather than telling you what your goals should be.
Following it up with this:
Confuses me a bit, however.
If one of your goals is making the world a better place (that’s how I’d rephrase the statement: “I do recognize making the world a better place is a good thing,” saying as saying things like “X is good” generally means “X is a desirable state of the world we should strive for), your intrinsic motivation shouldn’t matter one bit.
I have little intrinsic motivation of eating healthy. Preparing food is boring to me and I don’t particularly enjoy eating most healthy things. I still try to eat healthy, because one of my goals is living for a very, very long time.
One the one hand: How difficult is it to give 10% (or even 5 or 1 percent, if your income is very low) to an effective charity?
On the other hand: So fucking what? You know how the world becomes a better place? By people doing things that are difficult and thankless because those things need to be done. The world doesn’t become a better place by people sitting around waiting for the brief moment of inspiration in which they sorta want to solve a local problem.
This is one of the many reasons why effective altruism works. It allows you to contribute to big problems, while you’re doing something you enjoy and are good at.
(Or we can wait for /u/blacktrance to come in and try to convince you that egoism is the right way to go.)
Historical, isn’t that exactly how the world became a better place? Better technology and better institutions are the ingredients of reduced suffering, and both of these see to have developed by people pursuing solutions to their own (very local) problems, like how to make money and how to stop the government from abusing you. Even scientists who work far upstream of any application seem to be more motivated by curiosity and fame than a desire to reduce global suffering.
Of course, modern wealth disparities may have changed the situation. But we should be clear, if we think that we’ve entered a new historical phase in which the largest future reductions in suffering are going to come from globally-altruistic motivations.
Compared to what, medieval Europe?
Yes. Richer states can afford to transfer more wealth. We see this in the size of modern (domestic) welfare states, which could not have been shouldered even a century ago.
Well, Rome was basically a welfare state two millennia ago.
That’s not exactly what I meant, but nevertheless this is a good point.
Ok, let’s play this out.
As I already said, I have good reason to believe that “should-based” motivation wouldn’t work for me.
So what I’m wondering is, am I allowed to say “due to the way my mind currently works I’m choosing to optimize X by not actively committing to doing X” without running into the “you’re not trying hard enough” kind of argument?
Just because some people do things in a particular way doesn’t mean I can or should to try and do things the same way. It may simply not work for me. This may include thinking in a certain way or having a particular mindset.
I’d say yes, even if it would only be to prevent worse things.
To quote one of Yvain’s recent posts:
This might be a similar situation. If you choice is doing nothing vs doing something, doing something is pretty much always better. (Assuming you do useful things, but let’s take that for granted for now.)
If you follow the standard Less Wrong interpretation of utilitarianism, you’re pretty much never doing enough to improve the world. Of course no-one actually holds you to such unreasonable standards, because doing so would be pretty insane. If you tried to be a perfect utility maximizer, you’d end up paralyzed with decision fear, anxiety and/or depression and that doesn’t get us anywhere at all.
Since I’m quoting people, here’s a useful quote to have come out the tumblr rationalists:
To make that more specific to your own situation:
Maybe saying “Alright, I’ll give 10% of my income and we call it that,” doesn’t work for you, for whatever reason. Of course you’re allowed to figure out something else that does work for you. That’s what rationality is all about. Reaching your goals, even if the standard approach doesn’t work for me.
That being said, it might still be interesting to see if changing the way your mind works isn’t easier. (It probably isn’t, but just in case...) From what you describe, it sounds like a form of akrasia which you might be able to work around in other ways than a variant of planned procrastination