Yes, these are all sound counterpoints. Together, they suggest the idea is at least, neglected. I think your point 2 was also made by Stefan_Schubert in a comment above. I would be very interested to see research in the area, if there is any. I agree your points 1&3 are a problem if the number of altruistic people were finite, but what if everyone behaved altruistically, to the benefit of others? To the point that it would not matter if some people chose to donate to seeing eye dog charities?
I can appreciate your argument that promoting general altruism might not fit under EA banner, specifically because it lacks the “effective” intent, but I would argue that it could be one of the “hits based”, fat-tailed investments EA has been seeking. What if it were tractable and scalable to make people generally nicer to each other, and desire to help each other, non-human animals, the environment, and the future, impartially?
Yes, these are all sound counterpoints. Together, they suggest the idea is at least, neglected. I think your point 2 was also made by Stefan_Schubert in a comment above. I would be very interested to see research in the area, if there is any. I agree your points 1&3 are a problem if the number of altruistic people were finite, but what if everyone behaved altruistically, to the benefit of others? To the point that it would not matter if some people chose to donate to seeing eye dog charities?
I can appreciate your argument that promoting general altruism might not fit under EA banner, specifically because it lacks the “effective” intent, but I would argue that it could be one of the “hits based”, fat-tailed investments EA has been seeking. What if it were tractable and scalable to make people generally nicer to each other, and desire to help each other, non-human animals, the environment, and the future, impartially?