Young Idealism Is Not Misguided, Ctd

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile." -Chuck Palahnuik

Hanson gratiously responds. And now that I know he is listening I just want to say I find him an incredible person and am a devoted and long-time reader. His article on Unfriendly AI led me to read Singularity Rising, which I enjoyed. Nevertheless (and probably because I am a fan and subsequently hold him to a high standard), I stand by what I wrote regarding his post. I appreciate his response.

But I must say the whole of his last two posts has given me chills, mostly due to the raw fatalism Hanson is exhibiting:

News flash: you are just one of seven billion, so you aren’t going to personally make much difference. The world will have nearly as many problems worth solving then as now, with or without your help.

This, from a blog entitled "overcoming bias"! Hanson started this whole thread by stating that Young Idealists ask for his advice. Is his advice, like the Palahnuik quote above, that none of us is capable of anything significant and the world will always be messed up, so why bother? Is he really suggesting that if a Young Idealist, bright-eyed and full of energy and talent, went out to lunch with him and said "to what charities should I donate?!" the correct response of a Middle Aged Person is "you will probably not make a difference in the world." Because essentially that is the advice he has given me.

Actually, I really don't think that is Hanson's advice. Or at least it wasn't in September. And here's where the cognitive dissonance is starting to bother me. On September 24th, Hanson published a post entitled "Covert virtue - the signal that doesn't bark?" (in my opinion the most important thing he's written in 2012) in which he concludes that "private giving, far from being consistent with a pure and virtuous motivation, is actually deeply suspicious." Further, he suggests:

Firstly, it means we are less inclined to talk about and share the information we have about which causes are most valuable and effective. Given that donations to charity and other approaches to making the world a better place vary in cost effectiveness across many orders of magnitude, this is a huge loss. 

Secondly, if people can’t gain social acceptance from altruistic acts, those acts will tend to be crowded out by alternatives that are unavoidably conspicuous – impressive cars, holidays, degrees and so forth – that will do a better job of signalling how rich, noble and interesting they are.

Let me explain. No, that would take to long. Let me sum up. Hanson wants:
1. People to publicize their charitable giving so that others can aggregate this information, derive value from it, and make informed charitable gifts themselves.
2. Publicizing individual charity will make it more socially acceptable and subsequently decrease the social value placed upon consumptionism and material wealth.
3. People under age 40 should not take part in 1 or 2.

See the problem yet? If, as Hanson states in both his original treatise and his response to me, altruism can be used to broadcast attractiveness - but Young Idealists should refrain from charitable giving until their interest compounds - then they have no better way to project attractiveness other than through conspicuous consumption of material goods during the age broadcasting attractiveness is most important to them.

On the other hand, if we were to take Hanson's arguments a different way, here's a much better alternative: Middle Agers who make charitable gifts publicize it. This allows Young Idealists to see what are intrinsically valuable charities per the advice of the Middle Agers, and allows the Young Idealists to know behind which causes they should throw their zeal.

Reimagine the above scenario. The Young Idealist goes to lunch with Hanson, and rather than getting told they aren't a unique snowflake, rather than getting told to cool off and spend two decades networking and learning, instead they can talk about Hanson's well-publicized charitable gifts, and how that Young Idealist might contribute their mental and physical energies on those same charities...while they wait for the interest to compound.


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