According to my world model, if you want to do maximum good for the world, then… (I might be wrong, so feel free to question me)
Investing all resources (money, time, thinking) charitably (meaning: to the direct benefit of others, for example avoiding investing in AI companies, when you think that the world should slow down AI development) is wrong. Because you can invest resources into getting more resources, and if you invest all your resources charitably while others invest them into getting more resources, then you will end up with nothing compared to them and almost all resources will be invested selfishly. If you invest your resources first, and then use them charitably, you will spend more money charitably overall, because you will have more resources.
Investing all resources into getting more resources is also bad, because if everyone does that, then the world will be bad—because everyone would try to maximize their resources, nobody would invest in what is best for the collective (when it’s not the same as what gives the highest return of investment), which ends up with a lot of price of anarchy.
The right thing to do, in my opinion, is to be a little bit better than average in terms of how altruistically you spend your resources, but don’t be so altruistic that you prioritize others more than yourself (because if you want to maximize the utility of the collective, then you need to take everyone into account equally, including yourself). If everyone follows that, then people would gradually become more altruistic (because the average would go towards more altruism) until everyone would do what is best for the collective.
The problem is… “be a little bit better than average in terms of altruism” is quite ambiguous. That’s the problem that I struggle with. I know that I rather shouldn’t go 100% into altruism nor 100% selfishness, and I should rather be better than average. But in terms of what? In terms of results? In terms of effort? In terms of invested money? In terms of invested time? In terms of invested money, time and other stuff overall? How much is “a little bit better”? I don’t seem to have a complete clarity about that at the moment. For that reason, I also struggle with how to invest money (and other things) a bit.
According to my world model, if you want to do maximum good for the world, then… (I might be wrong, so feel free to question me)
Investing all resources (money, time, thinking) charitably (meaning: to the direct benefit of others, for example avoiding investing in AI companies, when you think that the world should slow down AI development) is wrong. Because you can invest resources into getting more resources, and if you invest all your resources charitably while others invest them into getting more resources, then you will end up with nothing compared to them and almost all resources will be invested selfishly. If you invest your resources first, and then use them charitably, you will spend more money charitably overall, because you will have more resources.
Investing all resources into getting more resources is also bad, because if everyone does that, then the world will be bad—because everyone would try to maximize their resources, nobody would invest in what is best for the collective (when it’s not the same as what gives the highest return of investment), which ends up with a lot of price of anarchy.
The right thing to do, in my opinion, is to be a little bit better than average in terms of how altruistically you spend your resources, but don’t be so altruistic that you prioritize others more than yourself (because if you want to maximize the utility of the collective, then you need to take everyone into account equally, including yourself). If everyone follows that, then people would gradually become more altruistic (because the average would go towards more altruism) until everyone would do what is best for the collective.
The problem is… “be a little bit better than average in terms of altruism” is quite ambiguous. That’s the problem that I struggle with. I know that I rather shouldn’t go 100% into altruism nor 100% selfishness, and I should rather be better than average. But in terms of what? In terms of results? In terms of effort? In terms of invested money? In terms of invested time? In terms of invested money, time and other stuff overall? How much is “a little bit better”? I don’t seem to have a complete clarity about that at the moment. For that reason, I also struggle with how to invest money (and other things) a bit.