I share your concern and insight, yet I also strongly identify with what Eliezer calls heroic responsibility, and have found it an empowering concept.
For me, it resonates with two groups of fundamental values and assumptions for me:
Group 1:
If something evil is happening, do not assume someone else has already stepped forward and is competently handling it unless proven otherwise. If everyone thinks someone is handling it, likely, noone is; step up, and verify. (Bystander effect: if you hear someone screaming faintly in the distance, and think, there are a hundred people between me and the screaming one, surely someone has alerted the authorities… stop assuming this, right now, verify.) In these scenarios, I will happily hand over to someone more qualified who will handle the thing better. But this often involves handling it while alerting the people who should, and pushing them repeatedly until they actually show up, and staying on site and doing what you can until they do and are sure they will actually take over.
New forms of evil often have noone who was assigned responsibility yet; someone needs to choose to take it—and on this point, see 1. (Relevant for relatively novel problems like AI alignment.)
Enormous forms of evil are too big for any one person to handle, so assume you need to chip in, even if responsible people exist. (E.g. Politicians ought to handle the climate crisis; but they can’t, so each of us needs to help.)
Existential evil is the responsibility of everyone, no matter how weak, yourself included. If you lived in nazi Germany while the Jews were being exterminated, you had the responsibility to help, no matter who you were and what you did. There is no “this is not my job”. If you are human, it is. There is something each of us can do, always. Start small—something is better than nothing—but do not stop building. Recognise contemporary parallels.
Group 2:
Your goal is not to give a plausible report of how you tried that makes you look good and makes your failure comprehensible. Your goal is to succeed. For in things that truly matter, that report makes no difference whatsoever, even if you can make yourself look golden. I keep listening to politicians who say “So anyhow, we did not meet the climate targets… but I mean, the public did not want restrictions, and industry did not comply, and the war led to an energy crisis, and anyway, China was not complying either...” as though the Earth gave a flying fuck. As though you could make the ocean stop rising by explaining that really, seriously, quitting fossil fuels was really very difficult during your term. As though the ocean would give you an extension if only your report had sufficient arguments. The report is helpful if you can learn from it and do better, an analysis of what went wrong to plot a path to right—which is very different from an excuse. At the point where the learning opportunities are over because you are drowning, it becomes a worthless piece of paper. It is not the goal.
You’ll note this does not proceed from the assumption that I am special, or chosen, or brave, or the best at things, or stronger than others. I genuinely do not think I am. I know I can fail badly, because I have failed badly, bitterly so. I know how scared and confused I often feel. But this duty does not arise from what I already am, but what I want all of us to be, believe we all can be. It is a standard universally applied, in which I strive to lead by example, but where I want to live in a world where this is how everyone thinks, because I believe this is something humans can do—take responsibility, be proactive, show agency, look for what needs to be done and do it, forge free paths.
But notably, I see this as a call; a productive, constructive call to do better. It is pointed at the future, and it is pointed outwards.
Reminders of instances where I failed burn in me, and haunt me, but as a reminder to not fail again. Mistakes learned. Knowing of my weakness, so I can avoid it next time. The horror of knowing I failed, as a way to stop me from doing so again. Ever tried, ever failed. Try again, fail again, fail better.
Not to stew in the past. I do not think guilt, or shame, or blame, or fault, are helpful emotions at all.
In instances where I did not manage to protect myself from evil, I want to learn how to protect myself better in the future, but hating myself for getting hurt does not help, it just adds more pain to a heap of pain. Me getting hurt having been avoidable does not make it fair, or okay. I can have compassion for myself having remained in situations that were terrible, while also having the belief that an escape would have been possible, and that if this scenario came again, I would find it this time, with the skills and knowledge I have now. I can think of who I am now with care and kindness, and still want to become something much more.
I can simultaneously think that there is way to really change our lives and communities for each and every one of us; and that it is fucking hard, and that I cannot look into the minds of others to know how hard it is for them, that we are each haunted by demons invisible to others, dragging baggage others do not see. That I did not know how hard many things I believed to be easy were, until I was on the wrong end of them. To know that I do not want to belittle what they are up again and have been through, because that be cruel and ignorant and pointless, but want to empower them to get over it regardless, not because of how small their issues are, for they are vast, but because of what they can become to counter them, something vaster still. I can simultaneously forgive, and burn to undo the damage.
To believe that I, and all those around us, are ultimately helpless, that noone is really responsible for anything… it would not be a kindness or healing. Nor true. But I want to see the opportunities in that truth, not the guilt and shame. For one gets us out of a terrible world; the other keeps us in.
I share your concern and insight, yet I also strongly identify with what Eliezer calls heroic responsibility, and have found it an empowering concept.
For me, it resonates with two groups of fundamental values and assumptions for me:
Group 1:
If something evil is happening, do not assume someone else has already stepped forward and is competently handling it unless proven otherwise. If everyone thinks someone is handling it, likely, noone is; step up, and verify. (Bystander effect: if you hear someone screaming faintly in the distance, and think, there are a hundred people between me and the screaming one, surely someone has alerted the authorities… stop assuming this, right now, verify.) In these scenarios, I will happily hand over to someone more qualified who will handle the thing better. But this often involves handling it while alerting the people who should, and pushing them repeatedly until they actually show up, and staying on site and doing what you can until they do and are sure they will actually take over.
New forms of evil often have noone who was assigned responsibility yet; someone needs to choose to take it—and on this point, see 1. (Relevant for relatively novel problems like AI alignment.)
Enormous forms of evil are too big for any one person to handle, so assume you need to chip in, even if responsible people exist. (E.g. Politicians ought to handle the climate crisis; but they can’t, so each of us needs to help.)
Existential evil is the responsibility of everyone, no matter how weak, yourself included. If you lived in nazi Germany while the Jews were being exterminated, you had the responsibility to help, no matter who you were and what you did. There is no “this is not my job”. If you are human, it is. There is something each of us can do, always. Start small—something is better than nothing—but do not stop building. Recognise contemporary parallels.
Group 2:
Your goal is not to give a plausible report of how you tried that makes you look good and makes your failure comprehensible. Your goal is to succeed. For in things that truly matter, that report makes no difference whatsoever, even if you can make yourself look golden. I keep listening to politicians who say “So anyhow, we did not meet the climate targets… but I mean, the public did not want restrictions, and industry did not comply, and the war led to an energy crisis, and anyway, China was not complying either...” as though the Earth gave a flying fuck. As though you could make the ocean stop rising by explaining that really, seriously, quitting fossil fuels was really very difficult during your term. As though the ocean would give you an extension if only your report had sufficient arguments. The report is helpful if you can learn from it and do better, an analysis of what went wrong to plot a path to right—which is very different from an excuse. At the point where the learning opportunities are over because you are drowning, it becomes a worthless piece of paper. It is not the goal.
You’ll note this does not proceed from the assumption that I am special, or chosen, or brave, or the best at things, or stronger than others. I genuinely do not think I am. I know I can fail badly, because I have failed badly, bitterly so. I know how scared and confused I often feel. But this duty does not arise from what I already am, but what I want all of us to be, believe we all can be. It is a standard universally applied, in which I strive to lead by example, but where I want to live in a world where this is how everyone thinks, because I believe this is something humans can do—take responsibility, be proactive, show agency, look for what needs to be done and do it, forge free paths.
But notably, I see this as a call; a productive, constructive call to do better. It is pointed at the future, and it is pointed outwards.
Reminders of instances where I failed burn in me, and haunt me, but as a reminder to not fail again. Mistakes learned. Knowing of my weakness, so I can avoid it next time. The horror of knowing I failed, as a way to stop me from doing so again. Ever tried, ever failed. Try again, fail again, fail better.
Not to stew in the past. I do not think guilt, or shame, or blame, or fault, are helpful emotions at all.
In instances where I did not manage to protect myself from evil, I want to learn how to protect myself better in the future, but hating myself for getting hurt does not help, it just adds more pain to a heap of pain. Me getting hurt having been avoidable does not make it fair, or okay. I can have compassion for myself having remained in situations that were terrible, while also having the belief that an escape would have been possible, and that if this scenario came again, I would find it this time, with the skills and knowledge I have now. I can think of who I am now with care and kindness, and still want to become something much more.
I can simultaneously think that there is way to really change our lives and communities for each and every one of us; and that it is fucking hard, and that I cannot look into the minds of others to know how hard it is for them, that we are each haunted by demons invisible to others, dragging baggage others do not see. That I did not know how hard many things I believed to be easy were, until I was on the wrong end of them. To know that I do not want to belittle what they are up again and have been through, because that be cruel and ignorant and pointless, but want to empower them to get over it regardless, not because of how small their issues are, for they are vast, but because of what they can become to counter them, something vaster still. I can simultaneously forgive, and burn to undo the damage.
To believe that I, and all those around us, are ultimately helpless, that noone is really responsible for anything… it would not be a kindness or healing. Nor true. But I want to see the opportunities in that truth, not the guilt and shame. For one gets us out of a terrible world; the other keeps us in.