Imagine that you are a kid, and that you recently acquired a new friend who likes to come over to your house to play. You’ve started to notice that he pays a lot of attention to your sister when he visits, that he likes to visit when she is home, that he likes to play in the house near where she is at the time. You suspect that he has a crush on your sister, and that is why he recently became your friend.
"People pretend to learn at school." This isn't a phenomenon I've observed. Students go to school to avoid punishment or failing to live up to social standards, not to try to deceive others into believing they're learning. Their body language and statements show this totally, such as "I'm so dead if I fail this test." There isn't an attempt to deceive about their motivations.
High School students I've observed make it very obvious whether they want to be there and why, and I find the same to be true at college.
"Large prior donors increase the likelihood of giving in response to information on aid effectiveness, - See more at: http://www.overcomingbias.c..."
The word "prior" is an adjective that has been pressed into service as a noun, as a shortened form of the phrase "prior confidence level". I presume that in this case, the phrase "large prior" is being used as a noun modifier. This conflicts with the natural reading of the sentence, in which "prior" is an adjective modifying "donors". Clearer phrasing would be "donors with large priors".
The question then becomes whether the added charity giving due to promoting another terminal value is greater than the inefficiency due to people pursuing that value at the detriment to charity.
You quote RobinHanson speaking of charity in the countable sense, but none of your post speaks of charity in any but the uncountable sense. Countable!charity and uncountable!charity, while being very close in concept space, are completely different words, and your failure to recognize the difference suggests that you lack sufficient understanding of the words to have a productive discussion involving them.
"Rarely is offense taken from someone intentionally given, it's purely internally generated emotional state."
Perhaps it is rare that a person has giving offense as the direct, conscious goal, but I think that it is quite common for the intent to be one that is offensive. For instance, when people recite the pledge of allegiance, I don't think that most of them are consciously saying "I think we should engage in this practice to show offense to atheists". But the pledge of allegiance expresses the sentiment that theists are privileged above atheists. This is an offensive sentiment. It's not a "purely internally generated emotional state". When atheists say "that's offensive", they are not merely reacting to an internal emotional state, they are commenting on an objective state of being relegated to inferior status. And whether they've really thought through it completely, the people reciting the pledge of allegiance do intend to communicate to the atheists that they are inferior. I cannot think of any reason given for the pledge that does not come down to that. And telling atheists that they should just "learn to govern your own emotions" is insensitive. Emotions are a form of cognition. When someone is offended, that means they are detecting a threat. The proper response to that is not to say "learn to not detect threats", it's "is that detection of threat valid, and if so, what should be done about that threat?"
"People rarely feel shame because someone wanted them to."
Shame is a social phenomenon. To feel ashamed is to feel that one's social status is threatened. Social status has been a crucial resource for our ancestors for millions of years. A million years ago, our ancestors worried about their social status, and social norms were enforced by appealing to that worry. An action that threatened the group could be deterred by threats of taking away social status. Our ancestors did not consciously think "I can deter people from stealing my food by threatening to shame them if they do". They developed instinctual ways of threatening social status, and of detecting threats. Shame is something that "happens". People don't generally plan it out, they just follow their instincts, and those instincts result in shame.Their conscious minds aren't deciding to make someone ashamed, but their primate brain is intending shame.
If you have such a negative view of human nature that you feel people only perform charity to disguise their hypocrisy, you really don't understand human nature at all.
For what it's worth, from your various comments, I think you don't.
What I wonder (but perhaps have no right to inquire about) is what leaves you so certain that you correctly understand human nature.
People rarely feel shame because someone wanted them to.
I think that's naively wrong, utterly wrong.
[My guess is that you consider only the most conscious efforts to induce shame, which produce reactance (but these too are often successful). But much shame induction is based on unconscious motives, and that's much more successful. Why do you think the charity do-gooders indulge in attempted shame induction (or are you blind to their underlying motives).]
Rarely is offense taken from someone intentionally given, it's purely internally generated emotional state. It's the same with shame. People rarely feel shame because someone wanted them to.
As ideal as it would be for people not to manipulate each other, learning to govern your own emotions so you don't get offended or feel shame every time someone says something will help you avoid being manipulated.
What is shameful or offensive should not be defined for you by someone else.
I apologize if I interpreted you incorrectly, but I don't see how "business must exist" and "charities - the economy could function without those" can both be held together with a proper understanding of how economies work, let alone human nature which economics is dependent upon.
Business and charity seem far apart in motive, but they are similar at the transaction level. Virtually any exchange between unequal parties will be viewed as charitable. Charity is derived from a desire to balance inequality. Any business relationship which took advantage of inequality would not last.
If you have such a negative view of human nature that you feel people only perform charity to disguise their hypocrisy, you really don't understand human nature at all.
Exposure of hypocrisy is not about exposing hypocrisy. Maybe Robin Hanson and effective-altruism advocates both secretly care about subtly shaming others!
My pet theory is that the new testament's treatment of hypocrisy has strongly affected how people view hypocrisy and the new testaments treatment of hypocrisy is meant to answer the question "If jesus is God, why didn't he tell anyone?":
"They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets." And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ." And He warned them to tell no one about Him."
Basically any public proclamation/display of goodness/godliness becomes suspect. That wasn't the way Jesus did it.
This widens the scope of hypocrisy from the universal disdain for those who say one thing and do the opposite which existed well before the new testament. This new widened scope of hypocricy is problematic when applied to public altruism. If you give a million dollars to fight cancer, you are highly unlikely to secretly be pro-cancer. You will likely have additional non-altruistic motivations though.
"People pretend to learn at school." This isn't a phenomenon I've observed. Students go to school to avoid punishment or failing to live up to social standards, not to try to deceive others into believing they're learning. Their body language and statements show this totally, such as "I'm so dead if I fail this test." There isn't an attempt to deceive about their motivations.
High School students I've observed make it very obvious whether they want to be there and why, and I find the same to be true at college.
Cheers!
"Large prior donors increase the likelihood of giving in response to information on aid effectiveness, - See more at: http://www.overcomingbias.c..."
The word "prior" is an adjective that has been pressed into service as a noun, as a shortened form of the phrase "prior confidence level". I presume that in this case, the phrase "large prior" is being used as a noun modifier. This conflicts with the natural reading of the sentence, in which "prior" is an adjective modifying "donors". Clearer phrasing would be "donors with large priors".
The question then becomes whether the added charity giving due to promoting another terminal value is greater than the inefficiency due to people pursuing that value at the detriment to charity.
You quote RobinHanson speaking of charity in the countable sense, but none of your post speaks of charity in any but the uncountable sense. Countable!charity and uncountable!charity, while being very close in concept space, are completely different words, and your failure to recognize the difference suggests that you lack sufficient understanding of the words to have a productive discussion involving them.
"Exposure of hypocrisy is good because truth is good."
How is truth always good? If sharing information will cause harm, should it be shared just out of some abstract concern for "truth"?
"Rarely is offense taken from someone intentionally given, it's purely internally generated emotional state."
Perhaps it is rare that a person has giving offense as the direct, conscious goal, but I think that it is quite common for the intent to be one that is offensive. For instance, when people recite the pledge of allegiance, I don't think that most of them are consciously saying "I think we should engage in this practice to show offense to atheists". But the pledge of allegiance expresses the sentiment that theists are privileged above atheists. This is an offensive sentiment. It's not a "purely internally generated emotional state". When atheists say "that's offensive", they are not merely reacting to an internal emotional state, they are commenting on an objective state of being relegated to inferior status. And whether they've really thought through it completely, the people reciting the pledge of allegiance do intend to communicate to the atheists that they are inferior. I cannot think of any reason given for the pledge that does not come down to that. And telling atheists that they should just "learn to govern your own emotions" is insensitive. Emotions are a form of cognition. When someone is offended, that means they are detecting a threat. The proper response to that is not to say "learn to not detect threats", it's "is that detection of threat valid, and if so, what should be done about that threat?"
"People rarely feel shame because someone wanted them to."
Shame is a social phenomenon. To feel ashamed is to feel that one's social status is threatened. Social status has been a crucial resource for our ancestors for millions of years. A million years ago, our ancestors worried about their social status, and social norms were enforced by appealing to that worry. An action that threatened the group could be deterred by threats of taking away social status. Our ancestors did not consciously think "I can deter people from stealing my food by threatening to shame them if they do". They developed instinctual ways of threatening social status, and of detecting threats. Shame is something that "happens". People don't generally plan it out, they just follow their instincts, and those instincts result in shame.Their conscious minds aren't deciding to make someone ashamed, but their primate brain is intending shame.
Choosing option 1 only works if you are ok with Z happening. If Z is of strong negative utility... then neither option 1 or 2 are acceptable.
If you have such a negative view of human nature that you feel people only perform charity to disguise their hypocrisy, you really don't understand human nature at all.
For what it's worth, from your various comments, I think you don't.
What I wonder (but perhaps have no right to inquire about) is what leaves you so certain that you correctly understand human nature.
People rarely feel shame because someone wanted them to.
I think that's naively wrong, utterly wrong.
[My guess is that you consider only the most conscious efforts to induce shame, which produce reactance (but these too are often successful). But much shame induction is based on unconscious motives, and that's much more successful. Why do you think the charity do-gooders indulge in attempted shame induction (or are you blind to their underlying motives).]
Rarely is offense taken from someone intentionally given, it's purely internally generated emotional state. It's the same with shame. People rarely feel shame because someone wanted them to.
As ideal as it would be for people not to manipulate each other, learning to govern your own emotions so you don't get offended or feel shame every time someone says something will help you avoid being manipulated.
What is shameful or offensive should not be defined for you by someone else.
I apologize if I interpreted you incorrectly, but I don't see how "business must exist" and "charities - the economy could function without those" can both be held together with a proper understanding of how economies work, let alone human nature which economics is dependent upon.
Business and charity seem far apart in motive, but they are similar at the transaction level. Virtually any exchange between unequal parties will be viewed as charitable. Charity is derived from a desire to balance inequality. Any business relationship which took advantage of inequality would not last.
If you have such a negative view of human nature that you feel people only perform charity to disguise their hypocrisy, you really don't understand human nature at all.
Exposure of hypocrisy is not about exposing hypocrisy. Maybe Robin Hanson and effective-altruism advocates both secretly care about subtly shaming others!
My pet theory is that the new testament's treatment of hypocrisy has strongly affected how people view hypocrisy and the new testaments treatment of hypocrisy is meant to answer the question "If jesus is God, why didn't he tell anyone?":
"They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets." And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ." And He warned them to tell no one about Him."
Basically any public proclamation/display of goodness/godliness becomes suspect. That wasn't the way Jesus did it.
This widens the scope of hypocrisy from the universal disdain for those who say one thing and do the opposite which existed well before the new testament. This new widened scope of hypocricy is problematic when applied to public altruism. If you give a million dollars to fight cancer, you are highly unlikely to secretly be pro-cancer. You will likely have additional non-altruistic motivations though.
libertarians pretend to be trying to overcome their bias while assuming charity is as utterly unnecessary as government
Hanson is concerned that efficient-charity propaganda might undermine charity. You've got him wrong.
I don't think I see your point, inasmuch as we don't go around deliberately giving offense.
[Strong people ought not manipulate the weak.]