I think we need to de-emphasize the notion of having a ‘big social impact’, as opposed to an ‘optimal individual social impact’. The word ‘big’ implies an objective measure of largeness, which seems absurd to me. If I were to compare my social impact to Bill Gates, I would consider myself to have a ‘tiny’ social impact, no matter what I do.
Basically, I don’t think that people should spend too much time comparing their social benefit to the absolute best people in the world, in part because that makes a very weak signal for individual optimization (If I do action A I would be doing 0.001% of Bill Gates’ work, if I do action B I would be doing 0.002%). The much more high-signal alternative is to understand what the a relatively good outcome for the decider is, and consider their actions compared to that.
I realize that the content of this post really isn’t about that specific point, but hear it brought up often, so would like to point that out.
I really wish people understood what optimal meant; that’s it’s a completely relative word (optimal given some constraints, which could in practice be quite limiting).
Maybe we could come up with a new word. I personally like ‘optimization’, but it could be with a qualifier.
My line for myself is to ‘do the best I can with the resources available to me’.
I personally like the phrase ‘do your best’ a lot. It’s unfortunate that typically people who say it seem to have low standards, and it’s become associated with that, but that’s exactly what we should be doing.
I suppose, though it’s a bit unclear to me whether people actually read “big social impact” as “big in absolute terms” or “big compared to my capabilities” or “big compared to what people normally do”. What natural term do you think might be better?
In this case, I imagine the title could have been something like, ‘how to optimize your social impact if you live in a poor country’, or just ‘the best ways to do good in a poor country’.
I think we need to de-emphasize the notion of having a ‘big social impact’, as opposed to an ‘optimal individual social impact’. The word ‘big’ implies an objective measure of largeness, which seems absurd to me. If I were to compare my social impact to Bill Gates, I would consider myself to have a ‘tiny’ social impact, no matter what I do.
Basically, I don’t think that people should spend too much time comparing their social benefit to the absolute best people in the world, in part because that makes a very weak signal for individual optimization (If I do action A I would be doing 0.001% of Bill Gates’ work, if I do action B I would be doing 0.002%). The much more high-signal alternative is to understand what the a relatively good outcome for the decider is, and consider their actions compared to that.
I realize that the content of this post really isn’t about that specific point, but hear it brought up often, so would like to point that out.
For what it’s worth, I think ‘big’ is better than ‘best’ or ‘optimal’ because it feels more humble, whether or not it actually means less.
I really wish people understood what optimal meant; that’s it’s a completely relative word (optimal given some constraints, which could in practice be quite limiting).
Maybe we could come up with a new word. I personally like ‘optimization’, but it could be with a qualifier.
My line for myself is to ‘do the best I can with the resources available to me’.
I personally like the phrase ‘do your best’ a lot. It’s unfortunate that typically people who say it seem to have low standards, and it’s become associated with that, but that’s exactly what we should be doing.
I suppose, though it’s a bit unclear to me whether people actually read “big social impact” as “big in absolute terms” or “big compared to my capabilities” or “big compared to what people normally do”. What natural term do you think might be better?
In this case, I imagine the title could have been something like, ‘how to optimize your social impact if you live in a poor country’, or just ‘the best ways to do good in a poor country’.
I’ve always read it as ‘big’ relative to what you would have done otherwise, or might have previously thought was possible.