Hi, so actually there are a few of us act utilitarians out there. I also don’t see any reason to believe that there is a substantial difference between maximizing short term consequences and maximizing long term consequences. That’s an odd distinction, since contributing to certain causes e.g. x-risk is as long-term as anything. It entirely begs the question to think that act utilitarianism vs rule utilitarianism is some kind of tradeoff between short and long term consequences.
(burnout and signaling are very important considerations!)
Who got all the positive media coverage a few months ago? Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman! And they were acting like pretty standard act utilitarians. I’m also yet to find substantial examples of burnout in my own life nor from anyone else.
Now the user above you claimed that act utilitarians “despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians,” and although I can’t say he’s necessarily wrong, I can’t be sure because I’d have to know more about what he means by “stereotypical”. Hopefully he has some examples of this behavior, although usually when people make claims about stereotypical-counterproductive-act-utilitarians it turns out that they don’t have any sort of good evidence or examples of utilitarians actually acting like that.
Anyway, I’d be perfectly happy to put more enforcement/formality behind the GWWC pledge. It sounds like a great idea to me, so I have an even harder time understanding what sort of motivation might underlie Larks’ snark.
Hi, so actually there are a few of us act utilitarians out there. I also don’t see any reason to believe that there is a substantial difference between maximizing short term consequences and maximizing long term consequences. That’s an odd distinction, since contributing to certain causes e.g. x-risk is as long-term as anything. It entirely begs the question to think that act utilitarianism vs rule utilitarianism is some kind of tradeoff between short and long term consequences.
Who got all the positive media coverage a few months ago? Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman! And they were acting like pretty standard act utilitarians. I’m also yet to find substantial examples of burnout in my own life nor from anyone else.
Now the user above you claimed that act utilitarians “despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians,” and although I can’t say he’s necessarily wrong, I can’t be sure because I’d have to know more about what he means by “stereotypical”. Hopefully he has some examples of this behavior, although usually when people make claims about stereotypical-counterproductive-act-utilitarians it turns out that they don’t have any sort of good evidence or examples of utilitarians actually acting like that.
Anyway, I’d be perfectly happy to put more enforcement/formality behind the GWWC pledge. It sounds like a great idea to me, so I have an even harder time understanding what sort of motivation might underlie Larks’ snark.