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0 pointsgnramires3y ago0 comments

I understand the worry, but what's the alternative? Doing nothing? Every day, we are confronted with the facts, and we have to make a decision. Doing nothing could be one of them. I am highly convinced doing something is better than nothing, and the somethings I've found (not all the things, but some things) are Effective altruism.

If you have better proposals, name them, let us discuss and maybe we can do even better!

(the movement is really open about this -- which is one of the reasons some people have seemingly weird beliefs -- simply because some people said 'You should be instead doing X!!', where X was saving humanity from existential risks; maybe you should be shouting at us 'You should be instead doing Y!!', where Y is your idea, and if you're right we sincerely, truly hope you can change our minds)

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/

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constantcrying3y ago

>Doing nothing?

Doing nothing would have been better than doing scientific socialism.

>I understand the worry, but what's the alternative?

Obviously the hardest question. The first and most important issue is the truth. The second most important issue is what are the limits of truth. For me the idea of utilitarianism (and all variations on the idea of a purely rational/mathematical based morality) is an "anti truth", it isn't just false, it false and makes confident truth claims about the unknowable. Of course this an entirely negative claim, but there is one korrolary: People can be fulfilled without me understanding why and completely in despair with me not having any idea how to fix this.

I think nobody should be asking "how can I fix the world" before they have asked themselves if they are the person they think they should be. And whether there is someone there right now close to them, who could maybe really need some help. Of course the world isn't saved by that, but is there any hope if we ignore the people closest to us in favor of vain dreams?

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