idea21

Karma: 53

idea21 24 Nov 2025 4:59 UTC
3 points
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on: Growing Effective Altruism
It is always appreciated when someone realizes that EA’s main problem with respect to utilitarianism is that with little more than ten thousand adherents, there is little that can be done regarding the complex and ambitious goals set out in the Forum.
One suggestion for proselytism would be to secure the support of a highly influential public figure. I’ve mentioned the extraordinary success of the Tolstoyan movement in its time. Its doctrine of peace and love inspired many to give away their possessions to charity. Its success stemmed from the fact that, between 1890 and 1910, Tolstoy was the most famous living writer in the world. In 1910, his long and beautiful life came to an end, and the movement dissolved.
Today, there are several internationally renowned writers, enjoying both popular and critical acclaim, who have demonstrated a strong interest in moral, humanitarian, and even outright altruistic issues in their works. If one of them were to actively advocate for the ideal of effective altruism, it would be an enormous help.

Cultural Longtermism

idea2123 Nov 2025 2:15 UTC

2 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

idea21 20 Nov 2025 15:31 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: Zlatko Jovičić’s comment on: On Love, Rationalization, Flourishing, and Moral Circle Expansion
Prioritizing humans over non-humans is yet another ethical dilemma, among many others. If you cure one AIDS patient, you might be condemning five malaria patients to death.
I sometimes feel like I’m not virtuous enough
Virtue is something that has to do with emotions and beliefs. In everyday life, many people go to therapy to help them feel better and be consistent with their beliefs. That is, we act in accordance with our nature, recognizing our aspirations, our weaknesses, and our needs.
If our belief is altruism, we should act similarly, developing strategies to improve our behavior in the direction of altruistic action. Ideally, altruistic action would provide us with immediate emotional rewards (which would have a “zero economic cost”), but this doesn’t seem very attainable in daily life.
It occurs to me, based on some historical precedents, that altruism can be necessarily associated with behaviors of “moral excellence,” which are those that make an individual worthy of the utmost trust. A human environment of maximum trust can be emotionally attractive as a personal aspiration for many individuals… even if this requires making certain unavoidable sacrifices.

idea21 20 Nov 2025 10:21 UTC
2 points
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on: On Love, Rationalization, Flourishing, and Moral Circle Expansion
Expanding the moral circle is only possible by developing empathetic awareness in the broadest possible social sphere, and the problem with prioritizing animal welfare over human welfare is that it could jeopardize this process of awareness. Many people may interpret an interest in animal welfare as a manifestation of misanthropy: humanity is hateful, that’s why I love non-human animals.
The expansion of the moral circle is a consequence of a process of moral evolution. Fostering this process of moral evolution should be the priority.
Altruism is merely the economic manifestation of moral improvement, which actually takes place at a deeper level of the individual’s psychology, the source of behavior. Moral improvement implies, above all, controlling aggression and expanding empathy and benevolence.
If this moral improvement manifests in one million more individuals, it will almost certainly turn them all into vegans and opponents of animal mistreatment… although they may not make any financial donations to anti-animal cruelty organizations because they will consider the fight against human suffering to be a priority. However, they will indirectly contribute much more to animal welfare than five or ten thousand animal welfare activists (and financial contributors) whose capacity to drive moral evolution will be much lower, if only because numerically they will be much fewer.
Of course, this viewpoint will only be shared by those who believe we can actively promote moral evolution. In this forum, the discussion tends to focus on maximizing the benefits of existing altruistic action (a consequence of previous moral evolution) rather than developing strategies to increase the number of individuals motivated to act altruistically (promoting moral evolution).

idea21 17 Nov 2025 9:36 UTC
2 points
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on: Altruism as a Virtue
Excellent essay. It’s unusual to find a psychological interpretation of altruistic behavior in this forum dedicated to altruism. Altruism is a pattern of behavior conditioned by individual motivation.
Since the EA community is aligned with utilitarianism, it is clear that the fundamental question would be how to increase the number of altruistic agents.
There seem to be situations or conditions in which people are more likely to behave altruistically.
and
Role modeling is a form of social pressure that may help to develop altruists. People are more likely to volunteer (for instance, to join a blood drive) if they see volunteering modeled for them
An important motivator for altruistic acts are self-generated internal rewards (...) For example, people feel satisfied by meeting goals (...) You can take satisfaction at becoming the sort of person you admire (...) You can empathically adopt some of the relief felt by those you help.
To build the virtue of altruism, altruism needs to be part of your character. Your character is composed of the sorts of choices you habitually make.
My objection to your general approach is that you ignore what appears to be a process of moral evolution that has led to an increase in the number of individuals interested in altruistic behavior. The very existence of the EA community seems to be evidence that this evolution is taking place: it would be the first social movement based strictly and rationally on the development of a prosocial behavioral trait. This does not happen by free will (in reality, nothing happens in human beings by free will) but as a consequence of cultural conditioning that is taking place in today’s world.
Thus, simply listing individual approaches that promote altruistic behavior is impractical, among other things because it ignores the social nature of human existence. If, for example, you believe in a lifestyle based on family happiness, you are unlikely to practice much altruism, since your family will always be your priority. Conversely, organizing a lifestyle based on altruistic behavior (something for which there are certain historical precedents) could greatly increase the number of motivations for altruistic behavior.
In any case, as utilitarians, what matters are the results: does a purely individualistic view of altruistic motivation seem promising from the point of view of increasing altruistic action? It doesn’t seem so.
The empirical evidence suggests that altruism correlates with human flourishing on several dimensions.
So a lifestyle based on altruism is not far-fetched.
Modeling altruism as something that is self-rewarding can encourage altruism in others (especially people who have been discouraged by a joylessly puritanical idea of altruism)
Here’s the mistake: why have puritan (or “renunciant”) movements existed historically if they are so discouraging? What is the concept of “joy” for each individual in their personal and social circumstances?
The answer is that they (“puritans”) have always been discouraging for the majority of people living a conventional lifestyle. But our current lifestyle (in the “enlightened West”… so to speak) is already discouraging for the conventional lifestyle in Afghanistan, for example.
A “puritan” lifestyle can, however, be very attractive to a significant minority. And how do cultural changes occur, if not from within minorities?
The idea of developing a lifestyle based on altruism is, moreover, compatible with the hope that individual motivations for altruistic behavior will develop. From a cost-benefit perspective, debating the issue and undertaking initiatives related to the possibility of developing a “Puritan community” centered on altruistic action is enormously profitable (it costs nothing).
In the last five years, the signatories of the GWWC Pledge have grown from five thousand to ten thousand. At this rate, it will take a century to change the world (of course, no one knows if there will be an exponential increase in the short term). In contrast, we have precedents of social movements based on benevolence and altruism that experienced almost explosive growth. Of course, they also quickly died out, and of course, they were not equivalent to social movements based on rational and enlightened principles. Perhaps the time has finally come to take the remaining steps.
Any inquiry into altruistic motivation is enlightening not only about this phenomenon of human behavior, but also about the human condition itself, in which antisocial and prosocial behaviors coexist in a conflict that has marked the evolution of the civilizational phenomenon itself.
Thanks for your view.

idea21 14 Nov 2025 21:20 UTC
5 points
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on: If wild animal welfare is intractable, everything is intractable.
One possible solution is to consider that the human potential to develop both technology (the capacity to intervene in any material environment) and altruistic motivation is practically unlimited, meaning it would only be a matter of time before no area of action remains untouched by human intervention aimed at reducing suffering.
If we act from this premise, our priority must always be the development of altruistic motivation, something that requires cultural changes that can begin now.

idea21 12 Nov 2025 23:01 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: James Brobin’s comment on: Effective Altruists Should Promote Frugality More
I don’t think there’s much data yet on how a person motivated to act altruistically can have their material sacrifices and lifestyle changes (frugality, dedication, commitment) compensated with non-material emotional benefits. But there have been quite a few comments on the book “Strangers Drowning” in this forum.

idea21 12 Nov 2025 19:06 UTC
6 points
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on: Effective Altruists Should Promote Frugality More
There are some historical examples of altruistic behavior (famous cases like Tolstoy and Gandhi) that show that, in the right context, many people find in frugality and in accounting for charitable works a certain psychological satisfaction comparable to that which others find in the so-called “virtue of thrift” and in the enjoyment of their possessions. It might be worthwhile to explore these kinds of social contexts and emotional rewards. There are many paths to happiness.

idea21 10 Nov 2025 21:34 UTC
1 point
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on: Moral Self-Indulgence
The problem arises when utilitarianism isn’t utilitarian enough. Ethics based on principles and a cultural conception of “virtue,” which in its effects doesn’t necessarily contradict utilitarianism, can promote cultural change by increasing altruistic action and transforming the behavior of large numbers of people. (Obviously, I’m not referring to a conventional ethics of principles and virtue, but to a conception of human relations based on benevolence, which is only impossible if we do nothing to try to achieve it.)
Promoting the well-being of shrimp and long-term projects for a future humanity ten thousand years from now might have its logic from a utilitarian point of view… but it’s unlikely that these are altruistic projects capable of promoting cultural change. And if there’s no cultural change in the sense of laying the foundations for a humanity that makes altruistic action its main economic activity… very little good will be done in consequentialist terms. The consequentialist may then experience their own case of self-indulgence.
prioritizing expressive concerns and emotional comfort over genuine concern for how people’s lives are concretely affected

idea21 5 Nov 2025 17:23 UTC
1 point
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on: Choose your afterlife: a hedonist’s guide to religion and heavens
I remember enjoying reading the book “After Lives” byJohn Casey, about different conceptions of the afterlife. Obviously, the only possibility of living eternally would be some kind of “biological uploading” carried out across time by a future altruistic civilization, something that seems highly improbable to us today (but which would trump Pascal’s wager, by the way).
In any case, these fantasies are above all revealing of the culture of each era. Why did the Egyptians believe in the afterlife and not the Babylonians? Many consider that this belief in divine benevolence implied a certain progression in earthly benevolence.

idea21 5 Nov 2025 16:00 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: titotal’s comment on: Disciplined iconoclasm
You understand that “academic knowledge” encompasses basically all of science, right?
Obviously, I was not referring to the empirical sciences, but, as is clear from the context, to the social sciences, which have a certain capacity to influence moral culture.
You have the impression that the work of academic professionals is rigorously focused on the truth. I think that there are some self-evident truths about social progress that are not currently being addressed in academia.
I don’t think that EA is a complete ideology today, but its foundation is based on a great novelty: conceiving social change from a trait of human behavior (altruism).

idea21 4 Nov 2025 16:02 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: Yarrow Bouchard 🔸’s comment on: Disciplined iconoclasm
Of course, I agree that EA contains extravagant, Byzantine, and biased approaches, influenced by all sorts of traditions. But there is one approach that is original, unique, and that opens a window for social change. In the world of conventional academic knowledge, there is nothing but highly intelligent people trying to build successful careers.
The critique of “undisciplined iconoclasm” is welcome. There is never enough improvement when there is so much to gain.
I think many people like myself once detected something nearly divine in effective altruism’s emphasis on sacrificing personal consumption to help the world’s poorest people, not for any kind of recognition or external reward, but just to do it. That is act of basically selfless love.
And “love” is a real phenomenon, a part of human behavior, that deserves analysis and understanding. It is not ornamental, nor a vague idealistic reference, nor a “reductio ad absurdum”.

idea21 4 Nov 2025 10:23 UTC
0 points
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on: Disciplined iconoclasm
I think maybe people mistake the process of research, which takes time and hard work
I think you’re confusing “hard work” with the disclosure of wisdom.
Take a look at the history of philosophy and you’ll find plenty of hard work in medieval scholasticism, or in Marxist dialectical materialism. Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophers… and he was a Nazi and organized book burnings. Sartre supported Stalinism. They were true scholars who worked very hard, with extraordinary intellectual capacity and commendable academic careers.
Wisdom is something else entirely. It stems from an unbiased perspective and risks breaking with paradigms. “Effective Altruism” might be close to this. For the first time, there’s a movement for social change centered on a behavioral trait, detached from old traditions and political constraints.

idea21 1 Nov 2025 3:11 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Bentham's Bulldog’s comment on: What You Need to Refute Arguments With Astronomical Stakes
If by “taking seriously” we mean acting effectively, the problem, as I already wrote, is that we have to choose options.
The most plausible option must be the one that increases the possibilities for all kinds of altruistic action. Schubert and Caviola, in their book *Effective Altruism and the Human Mind*, consider it acceptable to offer altruistic options that, while perhaps not the most effective from a logical standpoint, may be more appealing to the general public (thus increasing the number of altruistic agents and the resulting altruistic action in general).
It is necessary to find a middle ground based on trial and error, always bearing in mind that increasing the number of people motivated to act altruistically should be the primary objective. Logically, I am referring to a motivation based on rational and enlightened principles, and one that takes into account the psychological, cultural, and social factors inherent in human altruistic behavior.
The main factor in “Effective Altruism” is altruistic motivation. Long-term options are not very motivating due to the cluelessness factor. Nor are options for animal welfare as motivating as those that involve reducing human suffering in the present moment.
When we have as many agents of “Effective Altruism” as, for example, followers of Jehovah’s Witnesses or communist militants (outside of communist states), then we will be able to make many more altruistic choices of all kinds. Isn’t this plausible?

idea21 31 Oct 2025 18:40 UTC
1 point
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on: What You Need to Refute Arguments With Astronomical Stakes
“you have to take seriously every position with huge implications provided it is not extremely implausible.”
Some views are ridiculously implausible even if you couldn’t out-debate some of their advocates.
So it all depends on what is plausible, even if you can’t refute what is implausible or not.
There may be many positions with huge implications, but you can’t take them all. You have to choose. And to do that, you have to judge: what criteria should be followed to trust the technical expertise of others, particularly in speculations as complex and far removed from the present as long-termism?
In the example of nuclear risk, let’s remember what happened in 1962. Was JFK crazy to force a crisis that could have led the world to destruction?

idea21 26 Oct 2025 10:05 UTC
1 point
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on: The Will to Create the Future, Not Just Predict It
When we work from a vision, we can measure progress against whether actions move us closer or farther from it, not whether a specific forecast proved to be correct. This enables continuous course correction without losing sense of purpose.
A very lucid view. The vision is constructed from what we know about our current conditions, so it is more realistic and tailored to our knowledge. Long-term predictions are often erroneous because they ignore logically unforeseeable circumstances (technological and cultural changes).
But we must not fall into the error of constructing a “vision” from entirely contemporary elements. We must know how to extract the essential and promising from the present. Current progressivism, for example, is based on a political model that is probably exhausted. Let us remember that Voltaire and Montesquieu advocated humanist development… but they could not foresee the structural political changes (universal suffrage, political human rights, etc.) that this would entail.

idea21 21 Oct 2025 5:32 UTC
−1 points
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on: An argument for discussion of increasing compassion as potential present action for the distant future with additional near-term benefits
Is it actually possible to increase human compassion and do we have any reason to believe that investment in this would provide good value or could result in significant progress?
Everything seems to indicate that the cultural evolution of civilization is moving in the direction of increasing compassionate emotions. Even in recent times, we can observe how ethical conceptions urging action to remedy the suffering of our fellow human (and non-humans) beings have become popular almost year after year. The very emergence of the EA movement points in this direction.
However, we are far from achieving the ultimate goal of a prosocial planetary culture, in the sense of the development of an ethos of benevolence, compassion, altruism, and total control of aggression based on rational, enlightened principles. And this is the fundamental problem that needs to be debated. Progress toward a fully compassionate society can no longer be linear (improvements in politics, education, and habits). It will likely require a rupture. And that always entails an epistemic conflict.
increasing compassion is not a stated priority of key EA organisations
Not yet, unfortunately. But interventions in that vein appear even in this very Forum. From a utilitarian perspective, no one can deny that increasing the number of altruistic people is the best means of increasing altruistic action at all levels...
The epistemic conflict: we would have to accept the exhaustion of political change to achieve the highest humanistic goals.
All political change implies acceptance of the system of legal coercion to improve social behavior. Therefore, it will never renounce the mechanisms of aggression, repression, and the instrumentalization of the individual for the supposed common good.
However, there is evidence (or at least a very reasonable hope) that moral changes (moral evolution) originate through non-political mechanisms: ideological movements that, supported by new cultural symbolisms (for example, the very concept of “compassion” or more recent creations such as “empathy” or “effective altruism”), develop lifestyles of a higher moral standard using a wide variety of psychological strategies selected through “trial and error.” But until now, all movements to improve moral behavior have developed within the framework of religious traditions (monasticism, Puritanism). Changing this is the task at hand, and it requires a paradigm shift.
Increasing compassion at the cultural level solely through youth education or popular pedagogy can never match the transformative power of the ancient religions. Isn’t it a fact that all nations where secular humanitarianism thrives… are those with a historical past of reformed Christianity?
Very valuable post, thank you, RedTeam.

idea21 20 Oct 2025 9:49 UTC
1 point
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on: Why Many EAs Probably Undervalue Their Happiness
All of this shows that much more can be done to increase the number of altruistic people, because, after all, if happiness is a motivation… happiness is something that, in general terms, we give to each other.

idea21 20 Oct 2025 2:38 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Jens Aslaug 🔸’s comment on: Jens Aslaug ’s Quick takes
The factor of technological advancement must be taken into account. A fully cooperative humanity committed to the elimination of all forms of suffering can get at its disposal technological means with a power as unimaginable today as our current technology could have been unimaginable to the wise Aristotle more than two thousand years ago.

idea21 20 Oct 2025 2:22 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: Jens Aslaug 🔸’s comment on: Altruism and Happiness
Recently, another forum post—at least—addresses the issue of increasing motivation for altruistic action.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gWyvAQztk75xQvRxD/taking-ethics-seriously-and-enjoying-the-process
This post referred too to a very enjoyable book about altruistic action, published ten years ago, which I think we should all read.

I honestly believe this should be the real, priority long-term question: how to generate a non-political social movement that motivates altruistic action.
I would love for the EA movement, as it exists today, to be able to achieve the ambitious goals of increasing the number of signatories of the GWWC Pledge to “millions”… but I have my doubts that this will be the case, and is it fair to the people who are suffering and require altruistic action to simply wait and see, and not try anything to accelerate the process of increasing altruistic action?
In my view, the first step would be to generate a discussion group on this issue (how can we motivate more people to be active altruists?). I imagine an inevitable conclusion would be, above all, to try to generate a social support movement for donors and those who are hesitant about whether or not to be one.
I’m also sure EA would seem less like a personal sacrifice if you were surrounded by EAs.
The “Alcoholics Anonymous” model (“mutual aid”) is the most obvious: individualized support and the creation of small groups (“cells”) at the local level. It’s absurd not to consider the psychological implications of making such a significant change in your lifestyle from what’s conventional.
All of this is independent of the speculation—which I find logical—about the possibility of organizing a “behavioral ideology” (so we don’t call it “religion”) that offers individuals the option of developing a behavioral style based on benevolence, aggression control, altruistic idealism, and mutual affection, all within the framework of enlightened rationality, which, to certain temperaments at least, might be attractive as a source of “personal happiness” (let’s not forget that there are many ways to “be happy”). There are historical precedents for such social movements being viable (why they failed is a topic that deserves deep reflection).
Thank you very much, Jens, for sharing your point of view, which I find extremely valuable.

idea21

Cul­tural Longtermism

Cultural Longtermism