I have experienced both value drift and lifestyle drift (mostly the latter) and this has happenned in the last 3 years—and I first heart heard of EA about 3 years ago. My values are still close to what they always have been . I come from this tradition of environmentalism/nature/voluntary simplicity, social justice, tolerance, anti-authoritarian activism, ‘scientific humanism’or ‘ethical culture’, as well as scientific rationality (math based) as well as musical interests .
While I could live a lifestyle based on those values, I was fairly happy. But I got into some personal and work related environments which meant I had to compromise on many of my values—surrounded by people who variously had no interest in rationality , nature or science, didn’t like the kind of music I enjoyed, sometimes intolerant, and even ‘authoritarians’ though these people considered themselves what are called derogatoritarily ‘SJWs’—people who are ‘never wrong’ and always saving the world. If I was around scientists, not uncommonly they had limited ‘altruistic’ inclinations—much more concerned with their careers and status than with the world around them—so their Focus as used in the EA Framework was on themselves, and viewed that as the best way to better the world.
Also altruism from a biological/scientific view some say technically doesn’t exist—you can’t help others if you can’t help yourself. (Though of course many philanthropists like Carnegie and Mellon have helped others—its a time dependent process. Some historians have argued that ‘British Colonialism’ was a good thing.)
I wrote this because one of my interests are diffusion-drift equations (used in theoretical biology, physics, etc.) though I’m not an expert in them. I was sort of hoping to combine them with the EA framework, but the languages and dialects are so different, i’m thinking its a waste of time. Just as other environments I’ve been in conflict with my values, people I’ve encountered in EA personally or on-line don’t value that approach. So I’m having more value drifts—stop trying to associate with people who don’t share your values—be less tolerant. And for me, maybe stop valuing math reasoning and rationality of the kind humans do so much, because the world is fundamentally irrational.
I have experienced both value drift and lifestyle drift (mostly the latter) and this has happenned in the last 3 years—and I first heart heard of EA about 3 years ago. My values are still close to what they always have been . I come from this tradition of environmentalism/nature/voluntary simplicity, social justice, tolerance, anti-authoritarian activism, ‘scientific humanism’or ‘ethical culture’, as well as scientific rationality (math based) as well as musical interests .
While I could live a lifestyle based on those values, I was fairly happy. But I got into some personal and work related environments which meant I had to compromise on many of my values—surrounded by people who variously had no interest in rationality , nature or science, didn’t like the kind of music I enjoyed, sometimes intolerant, and even ‘authoritarians’ though these people considered themselves what are called derogatoritarily ‘SJWs’—people who are ‘never wrong’ and always saving the world. If I was around scientists, not uncommonly they had limited ‘altruistic’ inclinations—much more concerned with their careers and status than with the world around them—so their Focus as used in the EA Framework was on themselves, and viewed that as the best way to better the world.
Also altruism from a biological/scientific view some say technically doesn’t exist—you can’t help others if you can’t help yourself. (Though of course many philanthropists like Carnegie and Mellon have helped others—its a time dependent process. Some historians have argued that ‘British Colonialism’ was a good thing.)
I wrote this because one of my interests are diffusion-drift equations (used in theoretical biology, physics, etc.) though I’m not an expert in them. I was sort of hoping to combine them with the EA framework, but the languages and dialects are so different, i’m thinking its a waste of time. Just as other environments I’ve been in conflict with my values, people I’ve encountered in EA personally or on-line don’t value that approach. So I’m having more value drifts—stop trying to associate with people who don’t share your values—be less tolerant. And for me, maybe stop valuing math reasoning and rationality of the kind humans do so much, because the world is fundamentally irrational.