Imagine a virus called “NiceKill” that is harmless… unless you’re a very nice person, in which case it kills you. Releasing a virus like this would be very bad, right? Now imagine a virus called “HalfNiceKill+60″ which silently spreads to everyone in the world, then 60 years later, it kills 50% of the very nice people. Still sounds pretty bad, right?
Research indicates altruism likely has a genetic basis. The Effective Altruism meme could act like HalfNiceKill+60 if it causes very nice people who would ordinarily have kids to focus on their careers because “that is what’s most effective”. From a long-termist perspective, elimination of the very nice people seems very bad. So if you want kids, but you’ve been holding back because “that is not what’s most effective”, I suggest you add parenting to your personal Things For People To Do list. It is a perfect Task Y… very hard for one person to have 100x as many kids as another. (Outside of sperm and egg donation at least.)
Note: This analysis is flawed if you believe the Singularity is going to happen in the next couple decades. I think it plausibly will, but I believe in hedging my bets.
Imagine a virus called “NiceKill” that is harmless… unless you’re a very nice person, in which case it kills you. Releasing a virus like this would be very bad, right? Now imagine a virus called “HalfNiceKill+60″ which silently spreads to everyone in the world, then 60 years later, it kills 50% of the very nice people. Still sounds pretty bad, right?
Research indicates altruism likely has a genetic basis. The Effective Altruism meme could act like HalfNiceKill+60 if it causes very nice people who would ordinarily have kids to focus on their careers because “that is what’s most effective”. From a long-termist perspective, elimination of the very nice people seems very bad. So if you want kids, but you’ve been holding back because “that is not what’s most effective”, I suggest you add parenting to your personal Things For People To Do list. It is a perfect Task Y… very hard for one person to have 100x as many kids as another. (Outside of sperm and egg donation at least.)
Note: This analysis is flawed if you believe the Singularity is going to happen in the next couple decades. I think it plausibly will, but I believe in hedging my bets.