finally got around to reading @TylerAlterman's powerful & beautiful EA critique it lays out very clearly how obligations are a coercive confusion that distracts us from our *desire* to help forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AjxqsDmh…
4 tweets · December 2022 · 33 likes · 1 retweets · read on Twitter
finally got around to reading @TylerAlterman's powerful & beautiful EA critique it lays out very clearly how obligations are a coercive confusion that distracts us from our *desire* to help forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AjxqsDmh…
> The thing underlying my moral “obligation” came from me, my own mind. This underlying thing was actually a type of desire. It turned out that I *wanted* to help suffering people. I *wanted* to be in service of a beautiful world. Hm.
> It made me angry. I felt like I’d drunk the kool-aid of some pervasive cult, one that had twisted a beautiful human desire into an internal coercion, like one for a child you’re trying to get to do chores while you’re away from home.
I also left a comment here reflecting on how while I didn't get the obligation bug I did get a bunch of panic, which is a different kind of awayness-based collapsed-awareness motivation. forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AjxqsDmh…