This is a thoughtful post, so thanks for making it. On the other hand, from an EA perspective I hope we don’t waste too much time worrying about people like you.
Put simply, you are weird. ( that is not an insult! - EA is weird and the founding communities of philosophers, students and AI/LW people who primarily make us up are even wierder).
I suspect, for those of use who want to expand and grow the reach of EA we should worry about how to expand our ideas to people who cannot use “expected utility maximiser” in a sentence and would never dream of admitting that they are “too egoistic” to prefer helping others over their own feelings. There is much more potential in talking to people who have never thought hard about an issue before than those who have thought hard about it and decided to go another way.
The language is certainly atypical, but I don’t actually think these reasons are weird at all; they’re what I would consider pretty common/core objections to EA and I’ve heard versions of all of these before. I think they’re worth answering, or at least having answers available.
I wouldn’t write it off. These reasons may apply to a lot of people, even if they wouldn’t express them in those words. I found point 2 particularly interesting.
This is a thoughtful post, so thanks for making it. On the other hand, from an EA perspective I hope we don’t waste too much time worrying about people like you.
Put simply, you are weird. ( that is not an insult! - EA is weird and the founding communities of philosophers, students and AI/LW people who primarily make us up are even wierder).
I suspect, for those of use who want to expand and grow the reach of EA we should worry about how to expand our ideas to people who cannot use “expected utility maximiser” in a sentence and would never dream of admitting that they are “too egoistic” to prefer helping others over their own feelings. There is much more potential in talking to people who have never thought hard about an issue before than those who have thought hard about it and decided to go another way.
The language is certainly atypical, but I don’t actually think these reasons are weird at all; they’re what I would consider pretty common/core objections to EA and I’ve heard versions of all of these before. I think they’re worth answering, or at least having answers available.
I wouldn’t write it off. These reasons may apply to a lot of people, even if they wouldn’t express them in those words. I found point 2 particularly interesting.