I do think it makes sense to step back, but in the opposite order (you can’t rederive your entire ontology and goal structure every time something doesn’t make sense—it’s too much work and you’d never get anything done).
“Why am I seeking status?” and “Why is EA and/or EA-organizations the right way to go about A?” seem like plausible steps-backwards to take given the questions toon is raising here.
“Why altruism?” is a question every altruist should take seriously at least once, but none of the dilemmas raised in toon’s post seem like the sort of thing that warrants questioning the entire underpinning of your goal structure. (I realize if you think the entire structure is flawed, you’re going to disagree, but I think it’s strongly meta-level important for people to be able to think through problems within a given paradigm without every conversation being about re-evaluating that paradigm)
Happy to talk more in a different top-level post but not really interested in talking more in this particular comment-section
I do think it makes sense to step back, but in the opposite order (you can’t rederive your entire ontology and goal structure every time something doesn’t make sense—it’s too much work and you’d never get anything done).
“Why am I seeking status?” and “Why is EA and/or EA-organizations the right way to go about A?” seem like plausible steps-backwards to take given the questions toon is raising here.
“Why altruism?” is a question every altruist should take seriously at least once, but none of the dilemmas raised in toon’s post seem like the sort of thing that warrants questioning the entire underpinning of your goal structure. (I realize if you think the entire structure is flawed, you’re going to disagree, but I think it’s strongly meta-level important for people to be able to think through problems within a given paradigm without every conversation being about re-evaluating that paradigm)
Happy to talk more in a different top-level post but not really interested in talking more in this particular comment-section