Thread by @EpistemicHope

Today, I was contemplating becoming rich enough that I could be confident that I wouldn't be able to spend all of that money on X-risk related projects, and I could give a chunk to Give Directly, every year, or every month.

(This wouldn't be the important, world-saving, money. It would be what I have LEFT OVER from that, which I could give away to help people have better lives.)

Thinking about that, I started to feel a kind of happiness and optimism and...brightness, that I haven't felt since I was first getting involved in EA, back in 2015.

There's a kind of aliveness that I used to be in touch with all the time, that I'm rarely in touch with now.

Open-heartedness.

The way I used to live my life (which, for flavor, entailed carrying around extra food in my backpack, to give to homeless people, and donating to third-world charities, and always stopping to help someone change a flat tire, etc.), ineffectual as it was, did have this about it.

Working on x-risk seems not to?

I'm not sure why. Maybe because it is more abstract. Maybe just because it seems less tractable, and any given action seems unlikely to help at all ("hits-based" as we say in the biz).

Oh! Actually there's a name for that feeling. We call it "warm fuzzies"!

. . .

Well then, in retrospect, it seems like we mis-named this thing, because the name sort of denigrates it, as if it is merely a subjective feeling unconnected to reality.

The term in implies that this is just a random foible of my poor-monkey brain, that I should grudgingly accommodate.

I think this that's not right. This is something spiritual.

The thing that I'm pointing at isn't just a random nice-feeling quale.

It's more like, the feeling is an indicator about my "metaphysical stance" towards the world.

Which ties in elements of abundance mindset, and generosity, and empathy, and an openness to the world, and a general, default, compersion, and connection with the universal human struggle, and a kind of...relaxation / not taking yourself too seriously?

There's something pretty _important_ about that fact that when I have the opportunity to make someone's life better, it feels great. And that it is something that I want to do.

So...I think that I'm going to continue working on x-risk, and also aim to become rich enough that I have more money than I think I can reasonably spend on self-investment and world-saving projects before the end, so that I have a surplus to donate to Give Directly?

I think this sentiment might be mistaken in some fundamental mathematical-philosophical way related to money and returns to money. But I'm confident that there is at least a way in which it is NOT mistaken.

I think it is good that I want to be the sort of person that helps.

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