In many ways, most EAs are extraordinarily smart, but in one way EAs are naive. The most well known EAs have stated that the goal of EA is to minimize suffering. I can't explain this well at all, but I'm certain that is not the cause or effect of altruism as I understand it.
Consider The Giver. Consider a world where everyone was high on opiates all the time. There is no suffering or beauty. Would you disturb it?
Considering this, my immediate reaction is to restate the goal of EA as maximizing the difference between happiness and suffering. This still seems naive. Happiness and suffering are so interwoven, I'm not sure this can be done. The disappointment from being rejected by a girl may help you come to terms with reality. The empty feeling in the pit of your stomach when your fantasy world crumbles motivates you to find something more fulfilling.
It's difficult to say. Maybe one of you can restate it more plainly. This isn't an argument against EA. This is an argument that while we probably do agree on what actions are altruistic--the criteria used to explain it are overly simplified.
I don't know if there is much to be gained by having criteria to explain altruism, but I am tired of "reducing suffering." I like to think about it more as doing what I can to positively impact the world--and using EA to maximize that positivity where possible. Because altruism isn't always as simple as where to send your money.
How can you measure happiness? I'd say happiness is way more subjective than suffering. It seems to me to be easier to measure the amount of suffering, by for instance looking at health and security risks... It is hard to measure my happiness but it is easier to see when I am physically going backwards... Because that would be fairly, consistantly visible whereas a moment of happiness does not reflect ones entire state of being at all. Wouldn't you agree?
Furthermore, how are you donating to increase happiness? How do you measure such a thing? One can easily donate against "suffering" by for instance, donating for medication that will reduce pain or shorten a timespan of a desease... But how can you donate for happiness? Donating to education in order to give people increased values and make them think positively? How do you measure the value of the donation needed and how do you measure the actual results achieved? By measuring the amount of suffering decreased?
Pretty much all the same ways that you measure suffering.
What do you mean? A risk isn't a mental state. A risk is a possibility of something happening. There are many possibilities which clearly increase the chance of people suffering, but the same can be said for happiness.
There are certain physical events that clearly cause suffering, but the same can be said a... (read more)