Comment by Oleksandr Yashunin (oleksandr-yashunin) on On Caring · 2021-08-26T17:20:23.179Z · LW · GW

This post is amazing, So8res! (My team and I have stumbled upon it in search for the all-time greatest articles on improving oneself and making a difference. Just in case you’re interested, you can see our selection at One Daily Nugget. We’ve featured this article in today’s issue.)

Here’s one question that we discussed, would love to get your take: You recommend that one starts with something one cares about, quantifies it, multiplies, and then trusts the result more than one’s intuition.

I love this approach. But how can we be sure that the first element in this algorithm is sound? Scope insensitivity provides that we cannot trust our intuition about large numbers. But can we trust our intuition about an individual unit?

For example, our intuition tells us that saving a dog is more valuable than saving a rat. But is our intuition a reliable guide here? What’s your recommendation on how to calibrate our care-o-meter correctly for the individual unit that provides the foundation for your scope insensitivity correction algorithm?

Thank you very much!