Thanks for the link, Tom. And yes, I agree that my hypothesis is an indirect answer to the question you posed elsewhere in this thread.
I don’t personally know that many EAs, but I am certainly on the cold side of the emotional spectrum. I am sure there are psych/neuroscience papers on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if emotional and cognitive empathy can work at cross purposes (see, e.g., trolley hypotheticals), which might be why those who have a lot of the latter have less of the former.
Relevant: Kidney donation is a reasonable choice for effective altruists and more should consider it.
Do you think EAs are in general not unusually empathetic? I discussed a similar issue elsewhere in this open thread.
Thanks for the link, Tom. And yes, I agree that my hypothesis is an indirect answer to the question you posed elsewhere in this thread.
I don’t personally know that many EAs, but I am certainly on the cold side of the emotional spectrum. I am sure there are psych/neuroscience papers on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if emotional and cognitive empathy can work at cross purposes (see, e.g., trolley hypotheticals), which might be why those who have a lot of the latter have less of the former.