What is the (counterfactual) impact of a celebrity? Like, how much good does it bring to the world when someone becomes a star singer, actor, athlete?
Sure they can entertain, they can inspire, they can donate money, they can raise awareness for different issues.
But there can also be a lot of narcissism and selfishness and entitlement.
I’m trying to imagine someone dedicating their life to acting, singing or sports… and it just feels like such a waste of time, when there’s so many problems in the world that need solving. How does one make that choice? Is there a logical argument for it?
“Do you really want to live in a world without Coca Cola?” I don’t really care about sports, but I imagine better athletes must be more entertaining to watch for people who do care. Even if you were to work in an important problem, you wouldn’t do it alone. You would probably be one more person contributing to it among many. So you can also look at each celebrity as one more person working at the problem of creating entertainment. Imagine if all music were wiped out of the world by magic. Wouldn’t that suck?
I like this perspective. I guess I was seeing “becoming a celebrity” as a choice of some sort or a separate thing. But it does seem that the problem is entertainment, and there is a big spectrum of people trying to solve it with different means.
Looking at it like that, trying to solve entertainment is definitely not a bad thing. Just maybe less effective at saving/improving lives than some other career paths.
Would be interesting to somehow compare the impact of a doctor/philanthropist to an entertainer.
Looking at it like that, trying to solve entertainment is definitely not a bad thing. Just maybe less effective at saving/improving lives than some other career paths.
For an EA, being less effective at saving/improving lives is a bad thing. It is the bad thing. That is practically the definition of EA.
Wouldn’t you agree though, that one should probably not always do the number1effective thing? Can we even really say confidently which thing is most effective?
I’m not a utilitarian or an A, E or otherwise, so it would be better for someone who is to answer that. But emulating that role as best I can: Of course (a utilitarian would say) one should always do the number one effective thing, if one knows what it is. If one is unsure, then put numbers on the uncertainties and do the number one most-effective-in-expectation thing. If you want to take high vs. low variance of outcome into account (as SBF notably did not), just add that into the utility function. That is what utilitarianism is, and EA is utilitarianism applied to global wellbeing.
What is the (counterfactual) impact of a celebrity? Like, how much good does it bring to the world when someone becomes a star singer, actor, athlete?
Sure they can entertain, they can inspire, they can donate money, they can raise awareness for different issues.
But there can also be a lot of narcissism and selfishness and entitlement.
I’m trying to imagine someone dedicating their life to acting, singing or sports… and it just feels like such a waste of time, when there’s so many problems in the world that need solving. How does one make that choice? Is there a logical argument for it?
“Do you really want to live in a world without Coca Cola?”
I don’t really care about sports, but I imagine better athletes must be more entertaining to watch for people who do care. Even if you were to work in an important problem, you wouldn’t do it alone. You would probably be one more person contributing to it among many. So you can also look at each celebrity as one more person working at the problem of creating entertainment. Imagine if all music were wiped out of the world by magic. Wouldn’t that suck?
I like this perspective. I guess I was seeing “becoming a celebrity” as a choice of some sort or a separate thing. But it does seem that the problem is entertainment, and there is a big spectrum of people trying to solve it with different means.
Looking at it like that, trying to solve entertainment is definitely not a bad thing. Just maybe less effective at saving/improving lives than some other career paths.
Would be interesting to somehow compare the impact of a doctor/philanthropist to an entertainer.
Either way, thanks for sharing!
For an EA, being less effective at saving/improving lives is a bad thing. It is the bad thing. That is practically the definition of EA.
Wouldn’t you agree though, that one should probably not always do the number1effective thing? Can we even really say confidently which thing is most effective?
I’m not a utilitarian or an A, E or otherwise, so it would be better for someone who is to answer that. But emulating that role as best I can: Of course (a utilitarian would say) one should always do the number one effective thing, if one knows what it is. If one is unsure, then put numbers on the uncertainties and do the number one most-effective-in-expectation thing. If you want to take high vs. low variance of outcome into account (as SBF notably did not), just add that into the utility function. That is what utilitarianism is, and EA is utilitarianism applied to global wellbeing.