It’s a straightforward question about personal values. Do you think it’s a good idea to have experts in EA or economics tell you what your values should be?
No, but they might know things like the scale of diminishing returns in terms of spending money on yourself, or at what minimum level of wealth do an acceptable majority of people (in x culture or x country) report being satisfied with their lives?
They might have a personal anecdote about how they earn a million dollars a year and live in a ditch and have never been happier, and they might know the psychological reasoning why some people are happy to do that and some people aren’t.
I mean, yes, it’s true that their answer is not going to be everybody’s. But an attempt to answer the question seems very likely to turn up useful information that could help people make their own decisions.
It’s a straightforward question about personal values. Do you think it’s a good idea to have experts in EA or economics tell you what your values should be?
No, but they might know things like the scale of diminishing returns in terms of spending money on yourself, or at what minimum level of wealth do an acceptable majority of people (in x culture or x country) report being satisfied with their lives?
They might have a personal anecdote about how they earn a million dollars a year and live in a ditch and have never been happier, and they might know the psychological reasoning why some people are happy to do that and some people aren’t.
I mean, yes, it’s true that their answer is not going to be everybody’s. But an attempt to answer the question seems very likely to turn up useful information that could help people make their own decisions.