[ExI] effective altruism: RE: ai emotions

Sat Jun 22 17:52:41 UTC 2019

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2019 10:23 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai emotions

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 9:38 AM Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com <mailto:msd001 at gmail.com> > wrote:

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 9:34 AM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com> > wrote:

mike wrote - Compassion shouldn't be measured by how much the recipient deserves, instead by how much the giver gives. 

so on the average rich people have more compassion than poor people  bill w

Wow, no.  I don't even know how to get from what I meant to how you interpreted it. 

Are you suggesting that compassion=money?

>…Very often it does - money to churches and synagogues and the rest - other charities.  What other way to measure it did you have in mind?  Time of course - right Spike?    bill w

One of our most prominent ExI-ers has been involved with Effective Altruism.

https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

While noting that this thread has drifted off of its original purpose, perhaps mistakenly, do allow me to run with the ball on this, since we (somehow) are here now.

If a guy has a pile of money and has everything he wants, has been everywhere he wants to go, has no burning desire to go back there, is happily married, his kids and his alma mater are all in fine shape, OK now that guy wants to give something meaningful to humanity.  We know of ways that can be done wrong.  Note all the ways Bill Gates has been criticized, but sheesh come on!  The guy really means well, and OK then, meaning well isn’t always doing well.

OK then, suppose someone has buttloads of money and really wants to do good deeds with it.  Step 1: hire some engineers and business analytical types to advise on how to do the most good with a given… well… buttload.  Have them do as you would if you were starting a business or investing: calculate the expected return, then put your money where you do the most good.  Ja?

OK, suppose you don’t have a pile of money but you want to do good things.  The principle here is to consider what you have to offer.  It doesn’t need to be money, and here’s a fun observation: there are plenty of worthy organizations doing good things which already have money.  They have enough.  However… they don’t have enough to hire people.  That really really costs a bunch of money.  The local scout troop for instance: they have money.  They have enough to buy the things they need.  But they can’t really hire someone, because if they did, they wouldn’t have money for long.

So… work with the scouts as a volunteer.

Plenty of school organizations have money.  But they don’t have volunteers, particularly ones with specific skills such as guys with tech educations to volunteer for Science Olympiad.

So… I am a volunteer for scouts and Science Olympiad.  These things don’t even cost me money (not much anyway) and it allows me to give what I have the most of: time and brains.  I have some time, but I have even more brains to offer.  I have BUTTLOADS of brains!  (OK perhaps I need a different unit of measure on that one (for some smartass will surely ask:  OK spike how did it get there to start with?))

This is the spirit of effective altruism: give what you have the most of, or the best value to the receiver.  It isn’t necessarily money.  It might be money, if you have plenty of that, but one more thing please: if you are looking for a good deed that doesn’t cost aything and doesn’t even take all that much time: go to a nursing home, particularly one for AD patients, look, listen and talk.

spike

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