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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27436 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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it's always possible OpenPhil is actually bad at their stated mission for whatever reason, including design flaws.

OpenPhil might be the 800 pound gorilla funding EA, but it is useful to remember that OpenPhil is not particularly EA.

Scott has addressed this kind of thing--how much altruism is mandated or what is sufficiently pure--multiple times.

While in the past Scott has written about the burden being easy and the yoke light, he went on to donate a kidney and wrote that one should keep climbing the tower. I am skeptical that his past writings on addressing the questions of purity are, uh, pure.

There are many degrees of purity. Ultimately, one can always sacrifice more for the cause.

Scott seems to genuinely enjoy his life in terms of material comfort, in addition to his significant charitable giving. And the kidney.

So whatever the threshold is for diminishing returns on his charitable endeavors, he seems to be on the sustainable side.

wrote that one should keep climbing the tower.

I think you actually managed to interpret that exactly backwards. In addition to misapplying it contextually.

He wrote that one should retreat down to the lowest level of the tower one finds necessary to fulfill one's moral obligations. If you don't share those foundational assumptions, then that's fine. But plenty of people in the West ostensibly do.

He wrote that one should retreat down to the lowest level of the tower one finds necessary to fulfill one's moral obligations.

I disagree, the last exchange of his example suggests that when you've retreated to that lowest level, someone like Scott should come along to keep nudging you up the layers:

Q: FINE. YOU WIN. Now I’m donating 10% of my income to charity. A: You should donate more effectively.

The person is not left to be comfortable at their fulfillment level.

I also continue to think it's interesting that he opposed this kind of shenanigan in his What We Owe The Future review, published the next day, TINACBNIEAC:

This series of commitments feels basically right to me and I think it prevents muggings.

But I’m not sure I want to play the philosophy game. Maybe MacAskill can come up with some clever proof that the commitments I list above imply I have to have my eyes pecked out by angry seagulls or something. If that’s true, I will just not do that, and switch to some other set of axioms.... I realize that will intuitively feel like leaving some utility on the table - the first step in the chain just looks so much obviously better than the starting point - but I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

He perceives the muggings can't really be prevented, that there's always going to be another switch, and a rational choice is to avoid the whole game and choose different axioms.

I disagree, the last exchange of his example suggests that when you've retreated to that lowest level, someone like Scott should come along to keep nudging you up the layers

So? What's wrong with a nudge? Coercion is bad. Persuasion is fine.

But, again, isn't Scott doing the thing where he's actually arguing down from the "purists"?

The person is not left to be comfortable at their fulfillment level.

Isn't that contradicting the point of him saying the whole 10% line is a totally great place to be comfortable?

also continue to think it's interesting that he opposed this kind of shenanigan

He's trying to find a reasonable middle ground. For people like him. For the more typical person. For anyone.

Scott perceives that unbounded moral philosophy is a mug's game. So bind it a little.

What is obligatory? What is supererogatory? Reasonable people can disagree and avoid muggings.

I think the issue here is that you perceive Scott is expressing two different stances, but I see him saying the same basic thing. Figure out what the obligatory minimum, satisfice, and then anything beyond that is extra credit, but there's no reason to beat oneself up over maximization or allow a philosophical mugging.

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