Some people might find the content on this website upsetting. If you are aware of being especially sensitive to materials on suffering, risks of human extinction or counterintuitive ideas about the world, please be careful.
It has gone three years since I first published these comments here, and I now think they are flawed. Perhaps not given a particular set of background beliefs, but I think they fail in communicating in a helpful and constructive way. I have decided to keep them up for archiving purposes and maintain them only to slightly improve clarity.
It’s easy to study these issues and come away feeling hopeless or overwhelmed, as I did. If you are prone to this, I can tell you that it at least helped me to try to live slightly more egoistically and try to figure out what *I* want, and not attempting to live “optimally” from a utilitarian or consequentialist perspective. I believe, based on experience, that it is sometimes not a helpful mindset. It also helps me to know that I’m not alone with these concerns and that there is a loose community of people who share many of my concerns, but who nevertheless keep a hopeful attitude. We might of course disagree on specifics but I think their perspective is valuable.
alblog 