I definitely became less interested in politics ever since identifying as an EA or utilitarian. But then Switzerland passed some ridiculous xenophobic propositions, and Brexit happened, and now Trump. And every time I had this worry in the back of my mind that we’re doing something wrong.
Carl mentioned “Misallocating a huge mass of idealists’ human capital to donation for easily measurable things and away from more effective things elsewhere, sabotages more effective do-gooding for a net worsening of the world” here. This point doesn’t just apply to money, but also very much to attention and activism. And the bias may not just be towards things that are easily measurable, but there may also be a bias away from “current” or “urgent” events. These events shape public discourse, which could have important flow through effects. What’s the effect if altruistic and driven people disproportionally stop caring about current events and the discussions that surround them?
Perhaps it’s negligible, but it’s certainly worth thinking about more. And I was glad to see how much attention the recent votes got within EA.
I was under the impression that a bias against urgent events is an inculcated response that takes active strength to develop, a resistance to the much stronger human bias to act on urgent but not-as-important things. It seems to me that most altruistic and driven people still disproportionally care about current events and the discussions that surround them, over the Important Things.
I definitely became less interested in politics ever since identifying as an EA or utilitarian. But then Switzerland passed some ridiculous xenophobic propositions, and Brexit happened, and now Trump. And every time I had this worry in the back of my mind that we’re doing something wrong.
Carl mentioned “Misallocating a huge mass of idealists’ human capital to donation for easily measurable things and away from more effective things elsewhere, sabotages more effective do-gooding for a net worsening of the world” here. This point doesn’t just apply to money, but also very much to attention and activism. And the bias may not just be towards things that are easily measurable, but there may also be a bias away from “current” or “urgent” events. These events shape public discourse, which could have important flow through effects. What’s the effect if altruistic and driven people disproportionally stop caring about current events and the discussions that surround them?
Perhaps it’s negligible, but it’s certainly worth thinking about more. And I was glad to see how much attention the recent votes got within EA.
I was under the impression that a bias against urgent events is an inculcated response that takes active strength to develop, a resistance to the much stronger human bias to act on urgent but not-as-important things. It seems to me that most altruistic and driven people still disproportionally care about current events and the discussions that surround them, over the Important Things.