The missing mood about EA guilt - by Ajeya Cotra
substack.com · 2,023 words · saved by 1 readers
It basically makes sense
Many Bay Area rationalist types1 have long held that being motivated by guilt is bad. It’s not just miserable, it’s also harmful to your soul’s integrity on some deeper level and ineffective even for the altruistic goals in question.2 I have a mixed relationship to this whole doctrine. I do think a certain kind of person gets in their own way by continually picking over their own flaws and shortcomings with little to show for it; self-recrimination can be a kind of narcissism. The returns to self-sacrifice are often not as great as the returns to other traits (like creativity or charisma or…
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