Attachments argues that much of our "selfish" behavior contributes to economic growth & pro-growth norms, which ultimately make us better off in aggregate. But wise redistribution also does this, & insofar as we can make the world a greater cornucopia by moving money, we should!
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IMO, you can read out of this a very nice personal philosophy — one where you try to live a productive life, contributing ideas & labor as you can, & giving to others who are trying to do the same but whose circumstances make an additional dollar more useful to them than to you.
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It's hard to pin it down exactly, but... Attachments is really not about limiting your sense of obligation to others, but to widening the scope of that obligation (to, for example, people living many hundreds of years from now) & serving that obligation through high productivity.
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It’s difficult to appreciate the value of human lives which won’t be lived for many hundreds of years. Likewise, the value of lives already lived — lived without the gifts of growth even many of the poor among us can access: clean running water, heating/lighting, refrigerationpic.twitter.com/xTADR882d9
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Mason 🏃♂️ ✂️ Retweeted David Deutsch
Yes... this is a repeating theme for me, strangely converging across a few recent rabbit holes. What makes the world richer? Why does wealth compound? Ideas, which can be forgotten but not consumed away. When you get a good one, you usually get to keep it!https://twitter.com/DavidDeutschOxf/status/1052678945248878598 …
Mason 🏃♂️ ✂️ added,
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IMO, the moral isn't to grind yourself down either for the poorest (a potential failure mode for EAs) or for all civilization (a potential failure mode for the reader, perhaps). Maybe it's "find the awe in a *grand human tradition* & try to find your place in furthering it."
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Mason 🏃♂️ ✂️ Retweeted Mason 🏃♂️ ✂️
You could do worse than to spend your entire life in pursuit of good ideas to serve, either by promoting/spreading them OR by extending/revising them OR by executing on them. There are many paths to the thinker priesthood, and it needs youhttps://twitter.com/webdevMason/status/1047498394447429633 …
Mason 🏃♂️ ✂️ added,
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Getting *really* tangential now, the book + this interview with
@tylercowen &@robertwiblin convinced me today to make a real go at quitting alcohol. (Today, coincidentally, marks 6 weeks without nicotine!)https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/tyler-cowen-stubborn-attachments/ …9 replies 1 retweet 59 likesShow this thread -
If alcohol were so significantly impairing, it's hard to understand why cultures in which most adults drink weren't out-competed into extinction by teetotaling cultures.
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Replying to @wzeller42 @webdevMason and
I’ve thought about that too. Pet theory: species propagation needs some level of “temporary judgmental impairment” to facilitate crucial risky behavior. It would help explain the recklessness of our peak fertility years too. Super-cautionary, risk-averse behavior stays alone.
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I think it's a causal rubber band ball that's pretty hard to pull apart. Wealthy societies tend to be more free and less religious, and the people in them have more time and resources for leisure of all sorts
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Replying to @webdevMason @wzeller42 and
Yes, fair. There’s a healthy dose of “what got us to here won’t get us to there” to consider when talking selection pressures over time too.
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Replying to @MarkMulvey @webdevMason and
In my view, it's more like: drink alcohol -> build close bonds because of handicap principle -> use those bonds to be more collaborative and trustworthy -> advance as a society. Plus there's the 'work hard play hard' argument which I suspect is valid too, barring alc abuse.
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