“The Altruist’s (Poor) Handbook” – a name that seems a bit degrading, how do you define poor? “Do I compare myself to Elon Musk or a beggar?” Poor could be someone who doesn’t think in dollars, could be someone who converts the price of everything into chicken thighs: “Well, I can send 30 dollars to Venezuela after the earthquake, or I could eat chicken thighs for a month…?” Because, even with the base currency of chicken thighs, empathy and the will to help often exist, but is it worth the effort?
We want to help and we have an association, in our association it seems that the time invested is not bearing fruit. I say seems, because we weren’t measuring the impact. We don’t know. And we don’t even know if it’s worth spending time to find out if it’s worth helping, but we overcame laziness and we are here to see that.
We, with so few resources compared to developed countries, basically have the space and free hours as a hobby to help. With that, can we really help? Make an impact? If we prove that we are more likely to hinder than to help, that would be wonderful. Because we could conclude that the most altruistic thing to do is to do nothing. And thus, sleep peacefully with our chicken leg in our belly.
Well, by the law of least effort, we seek the best studies to help, and we find effective altruism. And effective altruism has interesting things, I like that they seek metrics on how to help better, they are a kind of altruism detectives.
But what I could understand is that the Effective Altruism movement is dedicated to finding proof of how rich people can help poor people, it is not a group dedicated to finding proof of how a poor person can help the poor. So it seems that the focus of Effective Altruism doesn't serve, but this search for the best way to investigate the best ways to help and not hinder does serve.
We don't have the FBI of intellectuals dedicated to proving altruism in rich people, and we have to do this: be the intellectual FBI that seeks proof for the Poor Altruist. It was quite tedious to look for evidence and solve more mathematical problems. But we want to dedicate ourselves to this so that, at least, we stop hindering those who can truly be altruistic, the rich.
I now want to present it here in the community to build together or look for flaws or how to improve. Perhaps what we find as an answer from an effective altruist (poor), which can also serve rich people who want to be more effective or just like to think about these problems of the poor.
We want to build a "Master Document" (or Vault of Knowledge). It contains the in-depth foundation, the economic data, the literature review, and the metaphors. The author will use this Master Document as raw material to extract smaller artifacts: short video scripts (focus on motivation and metaphors), shallow operational manuals (just "what to do"), and project justifications for sponsors. And to extract a testable protocol.
We are left to be more scientific, because even if we fail and our altruistic efforts are in vain, at least we will be altruistic by contributing important data on how we failed so that we can avoid it in the future.
And we emphasize that, for a poor person like us, 30 dollars lost can be a week's worth of chicken thighs, so we have to think 30 times before investing our food.
So, since we don't have money but we have empathy, we get into the hard work and the fear that if we help poorly we won't have anything to eat in the end, for nothing. We overcome laziness, and what follows is that we come to ask and build here at LessWrong (you are welcome) this Bible for the poor altruist.
Introduction
We are in a specific context: vulnerable minors in Brazil who seek our help, the JACOMINESP association. These young people seek easy, short-term rewards. But we, at the association, want to be happier in the long term, little by little, with less risk, not just in the short term. And we see that if we have these young people as allies, we would have a better chance of being increasingly happier in the long term, little by little, with less risk and in a more consistent way. How to solve this?
We would have to negotiate with these young people, right?
If it's true that they only want something in the short term, we don't know how to align ourselves with them, because it will depend solely on what gives them the most satisfaction at the moment. And we don't know how to give them more satisfaction than drugs or more quick resources for their satisfaction than theft. We can't compete with their environment that constantly offers them this kind of quick gratification. How to solve this?
Would we have to show that it's worthwhile to invest in the long term, or am I overlooking something important?
I don't see another alternative:
We would have to give them something in the short term that encourages them to think long-term, and that gives us a better chance of them becoming our allies and not stealing from us in the future (to put it bluntly).
However, what could we give them in the short term that is least expensive possible to maximize the chance of them being on our side in the long term? In other words, what is the best short-term investment we can make in them to increase the chance of having long-term allies?
To be precise, we don't really know; we would have to use more scientific methods for that, which we don't currently use. So it seems that the first thing we have to do is look for ways to obtain more relevant information about them. That's why I'm also writing this request.
From our (still somewhat unscientific) perspective, we've noticed that young people want a quick and cheap reward with less risk at the moment they seek us out. Until they enter adolescence, and at that point, they generally no longer seek us out; they turn to drugs and theft (which we imagine guarantees them more short-term satisfaction).
If all of this is true, and we want long-term happiness, and we want them on our side seeking this happiness built step by step, we would have to train them to think long-term and show them that it's worthwhile to invest in the long term.
Therefore, we want to explore methods and review how best to invest in our context.
We want to find what is most effective and impactful in improving the world and recycle a solution using a tree-shaped decision diagram. Each subsequent step eliminates options or complements and narrows the path to the step most likely to help effectively and cheaply.
What we want is to build a protocol with fewer errors, low risk, cost, and greater benefit. We consider the entire spectrum of building an engineering protocol:From philosophy to mathematics and engineering.
We want to follow this process so that, in the end, what remains is the choice that survived all the cost-benefit filters, evolutionary biology, and counter-data. You could say that, basically, we want a manual of altruism for the poor (us). How do we shape concepts from scratch, from whether or not to help, to which model would be worth investing in to begin with?
If it's stimulating for the community to think about this problem, I will continue publishing here, according to the responses, each step we build for our protocol, our manual of altruism for the poor. So, is it really worth investing in helping these young people, or is it better to invest in our own satisfaction without these allies?
Presentation
“The Altruist’s (Poor) Handbook” – a name that seems a bit degrading, how do you define poor? “Do I compare myself to Elon Musk or a beggar?” Poor could be someone who doesn’t think in dollars, could be someone who converts the price of everything into chicken thighs: “Well, I can send 30 dollars to Venezuela after the earthquake, or I could eat chicken thighs for a month…?” Because, even with the base currency of chicken thighs, empathy and the will to help often exist, but is it worth the effort?
We want to help and we have an association, in our association it seems that the time invested is not bearing fruit. I say seems, because we weren’t measuring the impact. We don’t know. And we don’t even know if it’s worth spending time to find out if it’s worth helping, but we overcame laziness and we are here to see that.
We, with so few resources compared to developed countries, basically have the space and free hours as a hobby to help. With that, can we really help? Make an impact? If we prove that we are more likely to hinder than to help, that would be wonderful. Because we could conclude that the most altruistic thing to do is to do nothing. And thus, sleep peacefully with our chicken leg in our belly.
Well, by the law of least effort, we seek the best studies to help, and we find effective altruism. And effective altruism has interesting things, I like that they seek metrics on how to help better, they are a kind of altruism detectives.
But what I could understand is that the Effective Altruism movement is dedicated to finding proof of how rich people can help poor people, it is not a group dedicated to finding proof of how a poor person can help the poor. So it seems that the focus of Effective Altruism doesn't serve, but this search for the best way to investigate the best ways to help and not hinder does serve.
We don't have the FBI of intellectuals dedicated to proving altruism in rich people, and we have to do this: be the intellectual FBI that seeks proof for the Poor Altruist. It was quite tedious to look for evidence and solve more mathematical problems. But we want to dedicate ourselves to this so that, at least, we stop hindering those who can truly be altruistic, the rich.
I now want to present it here in the community to build together or look for flaws or how to improve. Perhaps what we find as an answer from an effective altruist (poor), which can also serve rich people who want to be more effective or just like to think about these problems of the poor.
We want to build a "Master Document" (or Vault of Knowledge). It contains the in-depth foundation, the economic data, the literature review, and the metaphors. The author will use this Master Document as raw material to extract smaller artifacts: short video scripts (focus on motivation and metaphors), shallow operational manuals (just "what to do"), and project justifications for sponsors. And to extract a testable protocol.
We are left to be more scientific, because even if we fail and our altruistic efforts are in vain, at least we will be altruistic by contributing important data on how we failed so that we can avoid it in the future.
And we emphasize that, for a poor person like us, 30 dollars lost can be a week's worth of chicken thighs, so we have to think 30 times before investing our food.
So, since we don't have money but we have empathy, we get into the hard work and the fear that if we help poorly we won't have anything to eat in the end, for nothing. We overcome laziness, and what follows is that we come to ask and build here at LessWrong (you are welcome) this Bible for the poor altruist.
Introduction
We are in a specific context: vulnerable minors in Brazil who seek our help, the JACOMINESP association. These young people seek easy, short-term rewards. But we, at the association, want to be happier in the long term, little by little, with less risk, not just in the short term. And we see that if we have these young people as allies, we would have a better chance of being increasingly happier in the long term, little by little, with less risk and in a more consistent way. How to solve this?
We would have to negotiate with these young people, right?
If it's true that they only want something in the short term, we don't know how to align ourselves with them, because it will depend solely on what gives them the most satisfaction at the moment. And we don't know how to give them more satisfaction than drugs or more quick resources for their satisfaction than theft. We can't compete with their environment that constantly offers them this kind of quick gratification. How to solve this?
Would we have to show that it's worthwhile to invest in the long term, or am I overlooking something important?
I don't see another alternative:
We would have to give them something in the short term that encourages them to think long-term, and that gives us a better chance of them becoming our allies and not stealing from us in the future (to put it bluntly).
However, what could we give them in the short term that is least expensive possible to maximize the chance of them being on our side in the long term? In other words, what is the best short-term investment we can make in them to increase the chance of having long-term allies?
To be precise, we don't really know; we would have to use more scientific methods for that, which we don't currently use. So it seems that the first thing we have to do is look for ways to obtain more relevant information about them. That's why I'm also writing this request.
From our (still somewhat unscientific) perspective, we've noticed that young people want a quick and cheap reward with less risk at the moment they seek us out. Until they enter adolescence, and at that point, they generally no longer seek us out; they turn to drugs and theft (which we imagine guarantees them more short-term satisfaction).
If all of this is true, and we want long-term happiness, and we want them on our side seeking this happiness built step by step, we would have to train them to think long-term and show them that it's worthwhile to invest in the long term.
Therefore, we want to explore methods and review how best to invest in our context.
We want to find what is most effective and impactful in improving the world and recycle a solution using a tree-shaped decision diagram. Each subsequent step eliminates options or complements and narrows the path to the step most likely to help effectively and cheaply.
What we want is to build a protocol with fewer errors, low risk, cost, and greater benefit. We consider the entire spectrum of building an engineering protocol:From philosophy to mathematics and engineering.
We want to follow this process so that, in the end, what remains is the choice that survived all the cost-benefit filters, evolutionary biology, and counter-data. You could say that, basically, we want a manual of altruism for the poor (us). How do we shape concepts from scratch, from whether or not to help, to which model would be worth investing in to begin with?
If it's stimulating for the community to think about this problem, I will continue publishing here, according to the responses, each step we build for our protocol, our manual of altruism for the poor. So, is it really worth investing in helping these young people, or is it better to invest in our own satisfaction without these allies?
Decision Tree Branches
Steps: