Facing Existential Risk is not altruistic

By idea21 @ 2026-02-11T02:55 (–10)

Altruism cannot exist without altruistic motivation.

Issues that concern the common good and are as serious as climate change, pollution, global economic crises, AI alignment or nuclear war can be addressed, and in fact are being addressed, by numerous international agencies—state or otherwise—with varying degrees of success, and, of course, any valuable contribution to such issues is welcome... but prosocial behavior for the common good does not necessarily imply altruistic motivation.

The idea of ​​existential risk is old. Perhaps it dates back to Malthus (overpopulation, then), but in any case, it does not necessarily imply altruism. Quite the contrary, existential risk, by generating alarm, can lead many fanatics to promote ruthless solutions as a "lesser evil" (Malthus suggested letting the poor starve to death so they wouldn't reproduce too much). I prefer not to give other examples. Nor is animal welfare necessarily related to altruism concerning human suffering (some animal rights activists consider humanity a harmful species against the natural order).

Why then does the EA forum dedicate so much space to these issues, which are already addressed in many other discussion forums, and in which the same people who participate in this forum could also take part?

Everyone can do as they please on their private property, and can name their private spaces as they see fit, but "believing" in altruism implies a certain commitment to a concept that, for the first time, seems to be addressed rationally and, at the same time, with activism. One can act altruistically in different causes, but a rational development of altruism as a behavioral pattern represents an unprecedented possibility for social change.

Although the altruistic community has not yet reached the level of creating a behavioral ideology (with all that this would imply in terms of paradigm shifts), its originality opens a crack in the wall of prejudices inherent in activism for social improvement as it has been known since the Enlightenment. A society can improve in many ways: through economic progress, through technology and science, through political changes... but social progress centered on "altruism" is none of these.  Altruistics represents an opportunity to propose systemic alternatives.

Some may get the impression that the interest many show in existential risk or the vagueness of long-termism are evasive formulas regarding the experiential involvement that developing altruistic motivation can entail for those who have rationally discovered that human life cannot be improved without also affecting emotional experience in the realm of social commitment. Those who advocate for social change have always liked to boast that they are objective and that "personal matters don't interest them," but in genuine altruistic motivation, everything is personal.

And, in any case, given the small volume of donations, EA should—in a sound consequentialist approach—pay more attention to exploiting its potential to support systemic change.