I believe I am talking about physical suffering and you are looking at it more as mental suffering. I thus stated that security risks increase physical suffering and are thus easier to measure than for instance, ones mental state and furthermore, happiness...
Avoiding existential risk is something that could make me personally more happy but I doubt that people, whom are not even thinking about these matters, would be more happy. (unless you argue that staying alive results in having the possibility to obtain happiness)
I meant to say that one moment, burst of happiness doesn't reflect on how one generally feels, consistantly day by day, year by year and is therefore hard to measure.
How can you measure happiness? I'd say happiness is way more subjective than suffering.
It seems to me to be easier to measure the amount of suffering, by for instance looking at health and security risks... It is hard to measure my happiness but it is easier to see when I am physically going backwards... Because that would be fairly, consistantly visible whereas a moment of happiness does not reflect ones entire state of being at all. Wouldn't you agree?
Furthermore, how are you donating to increase happiness? How do you measure such a thing? One can easily donate against "suffering" by for instance, donating for medication that will reduce pain or shorten a timespan of a desease... But how can you donate for happiness? Donating to education in order to give people increased values and make them think positively? How do you measure the value of the donation needed and how do you measure the actual results achieved? By measuring the amount of suffering decreased?
What is naive about minimizing suffering? Considering a world where everyone was high on opiates all the time shifts the perspective towards opiates in the first place. So why do you assume people wouldn't suffer in regards to others? The balance would just be shifted.
By "reducing suffering" you are having a positive impact on the world. Getting others out of a state of suffering will enable them to reach more happiness. Whether you want to do it the other way around, and focus on happiness in order to reduce suffering, will lead to the same results. The difference is that suffering is easily measurable (happiness is not) and isn't this what the entire movement is about? Finding ways to approach inequality more effectively...
In the end, I believe it does not matter what viewpoint you take on EA as long as we agree about doing the most good we can do in order to sustain the betterment of all life and environment.
I believe I am talking about physical suffering and you are looking at it more as mental suffering. I thus stated that security risks increase physical suffering and are thus easier to measure than for instance, ones mental state and furthermore, happiness...
Avoiding existential risk is something that could make me personally more happy but I doubt that people, whom are not even thinking about these matters, would be more happy. (unless you argue that staying alive results in having the possibility to obtain happiness)
I meant to say that one moment, burst of happiness doesn't reflect on how one generally feels, consistantly day by day, year by year and is therefore hard to measure.
How can you measure happiness? I'd say happiness is way more subjective than suffering. It seems to me to be easier to measure the amount of suffering, by for instance looking at health and security risks... It is hard to measure my happiness but it is easier to see when I am physically going backwards... Because that would be fairly, consistantly visible whereas a moment of happiness does not reflect ones entire state of being at all. Wouldn't you agree?
Furthermore, how are you donating to increase happiness? How do you measure such a thing? One can easily donate against "suffering" by for instance, donating for medication that will reduce pain or shorten a timespan of a desease... But how can you donate for happiness? Donating to education in order to give people increased values and make them think positively? How do you measure the value of the donation needed and how do you measure the actual results achieved? By measuring the amount of suffering decreased?
What is naive about minimizing suffering? Considering a world where everyone was high on opiates all the time shifts the perspective towards opiates in the first place. So why do you assume people wouldn't suffer in regards to others? The balance would just be shifted.
By "reducing suffering" you are having a positive impact on the world. Getting others out of a state of suffering will enable them to reach more happiness. Whether you want to do it the other way around, and focus on happiness in order to reduce suffering, will lead to the same results. The difference is that suffering is easily measurable (happiness is not) and isn't this what the entire movement is about? Finding ways to approach inequality more effectively...
In the end, I believe it does not matter what viewpoint you take on EA as long as we agree about doing the most good we can do in order to sustain the betterment of all life and environment.