1w ago

Mangione "really wanted to meet my other founding members and start a community based on ideas like rationalism, Stoicism, and effective altruism"

www.nbcnews.com After his disappearance, Luigi Mangione re-emerged as the suspect in a high-profile killing. Those who knew him are dazed.

Before his arrest this week in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Mangione’s family desperately tried to find him, reaching out to former classmates and posting queries on social media.

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effective alteuisim
Uuuuuuugh....I really liked him too.....
- The whole internet loves Alleged CEO Murderer, a handsome fellow who is alleged to murder CEOs! 5 seconds later We regret to inform you the alleged CEO murderer is a rationalist.
  
  Effective altruisim is fine on paper, and I'm sure there's people effectively effective altruisim, but most people who champion it are...well...Sam Bankman-Fried and friends. Wearing a mask of doing it for the unfortunate and spending everything on a beachfront mansion robbing Peter to pay Paul, with absolutely no real intention of helping the folk that "effective" altruisim is meant to help.
  I liked Luigi, and this is gonna sound a bit rough, because he shot a useless piece of shit drain on society. Effective altruisim is nice on paper, but it's almost always used to fleece the stupid so the rich can get richer.
  
  I went to a university with a big Effective Altruist presence (I think I still have a ruler and a memory stick with their branding on it somewhere) and I found many of the arguments they make quite compelling until I looked into the movement more deeply and saw its repugnant core
  Many people who are drawn to Effective Altruism are aware of the state of the world, and their relative privilege, but they feel overwhelmed by how little they're able to contribute to solving problems, relative to the size of the problems. People don't "donate" to EA, they're buying into a lie that helps them to feel less directly responsible for the world.
  
  oh yeah, lotta EAs really care and work their backsides off and live on beans
  it's a pity about the ones at the top
  
  large sections of lemmy have convinced themselves that Luigi is a leftist before learning that he's an EA libertarian and all implications and what side effects followed cause brain damage
  
  Getting flashbacks to the people who thought the GameStop guy was a leftist
  https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1go1ndu/rsuperstonk_in_the_midst_of_a_political_civil_war/
  
  ah yeah the famously leftist activity: stock trading
  difference here is that superstonk is qanon-grade conspiracy by now and here it's luigi who adheres to tpot schizopolitics
  
  He's young. He's still working out his view of the world. Of course he's gonna investigate ideas, accepting some and rejecting others. He's not far off.
  
  investigate ideas
  "Which ideas?"
  "Oh, you know the ones"
  
  I'm not suggesting which ideas are right and wrong, or which he would accept or reject.
  I'm saying he's young and seeking out ideas. Of course some will be problematic. He might reject them. He might not. Regardless, just the fact that he was curious is a point in his favor.
  I'm much older than him and this is the first time I've heard of "effective altruism."
  
  I’m not suggesting which ideas are right and wrong, or which he would accept or reject
  you: thinks one is doing this with care and finesse
  nobody:
  everyone else: 🤨
  
  I wasn't criticizing stoicism or effective altruism because I'm not informed enough on them. I wasn't criticizing rationalism because I'm in favor of it. But I'm willing to bet if society has managed to fuck up stoicism and altruism, we've probably done the same with rationalism too.
  I wasn't addressing which ideas or positions he was taking because I can't see inside his head. I have no idea how he thinks, or which paths he has taken. I don't know how he will change in the future. That would be presumptuous.
  I do like that he is curious. That's a good quality in a person. Not everyone is.
  
  I..... have to ask: are you actually aware of what the hell the context is of the things that you're commenting about?
  
  I literally just said that this is the first time I've heard of effective altruism. I read what others said about it here, and it doesn't sound good. I have generally favored what little I've read about stoicism, but apparently it's become problematic too. I know better than to talk about ideas that I'm unfamiliar with. Is it a problem that I refuse to assert any kind of intellectual authority where I have none?
  So what I said was I appreciate the fact that he is curious. I remember when I was his age. I believed in some batshit crazy things. I was a devout fundamentalist christian, a young earth creationist, an incel before they used the word. You know how I broke free of all that? Insatiable curiosity. I filled my head with other people's ideas. Cognitive dissonance forced me to abandon bad ideas and I clung to good ideas until I was able to form a solid foundation for how to face reality. Rationality was critical to that process.
  I'm not prepared to criticize the ideas and positions he was curious about. But I do praise a curious mind. Young people are still forming their positions. Part of that process is investigating ideas, accepting the good and rejecting the bad. I don't know how he will turn out. But curiosity is a good quality.
  
  okay a lot of that is good and all, but here's the flipside: a lot of these fuckwits outright prey on naïve curiousity. it is one of their biggest feeders for taking in people who don't yet know any better
  and that's kinda the point. broadly I agree with you, but curiousity is/can be a dangerous thing
  (also the reason I asked was the framing of one of your statements, so: Rationalism, big-R specifically. congratulations on learning about some of the worst people around)
  
  CEOs vs dust specks (large ones very fast)
  
  I would say that he has some moral principles and did actually effective altruism
- If you don't know any better, ie haven't lived long enough, then it sounds like a logical and compelling ideology
  
  yeah, until they pull out their machine god they absolutely have to build, because otherwise trillions of simulated humans will be tortured forever and that's not mathing in their sum of all happiness. also it never occurred to them that maybe billionaires shouldn't exist and instead post things like this:
  
  totally not a cult btw
  
  I'm with you, but someone who kills the CEO of a health insurance company does not strike me as someone who dismisses real/immediate suffering out of hand.
  
  Ironically the trolley problem meme here is a great example of the objection: the same set up that puts him in the position to pull the lever also requires that people be tied to the track.
  
  Also they could pull a lot more levers, but those other levers are not pulled. See how musk paid 6.5 times fixing world hunger for twitter.
  
  Realistic version: pulling the lever would save five lives but that decision would cost shareholders $7.23. What should you do?
  10/10 CEOs fail this test!
  
  No, if you're from the same socioeconomic sphere as him and haven't lived long enough. The only people I've ever met or heard of that are effective altruists are "upper middle class" or properly wealthy.....and younger than 50.....
  
  I guess because I was an idiot cringe atheist rationalist realist (you know the type) when I was his age, and thanks to an open mind and some very patient very wise people in my life, I was able to grow out of it, I give people like that the benefit of the doubt as long as they're otherwise kind and open-minded.
  
  My issue isn't with the basic ideals of effective altruisim, it's with how it's used by the wealthy to fleece people with the idea of helping people.
  There's not a single thing wrong with being a starry-eyed idealist. Especially if you act, bring your beliefs and ideals into fact.
  
  I think we're on the same page

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