Recently some friends and I were comparing growing the pie interventions to an increasing our friends' share of the pie intervention, and at first we mostly missed some general considerations against the latter type.

1. Decision-theoretic considerations

The world is full of people with different values working towards their own ends; each of them can choose to use their resources to increase the total size of the pie or to increase their share of the pie. All of them would significantly prefer a world in which resources were used to increase the size of the pie, and this leads to a number [of] compelling justifications for each individual to cooperate. . . .

by increasing the size of the pie we create a world which is better for people on average, and from behind the veil of ignorance we should expect some of those gains to accrue to us—even if we tell ex post that they won’t. . . . The basic intuition is already found in the prisoner's dilemma: if we have an opportunity to impose a large cost on a confederate for our own gain (who has a similar opportunity), should we do it? What if the [...]

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Outline:

(00:21) 1. Decision-theoretic considerations

(02:10) 2. Pragmatic considerations

(02:46) 3. Worlds where many people tend to converge (upon reflection) are higher-stakes (under some views).

(03:19) 4. Maybe you should care directly about others considered values.

(03:39) 5. You might be wrong.

(04:01) Disclaimers

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
April 4th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vEkhqfYiHcmRQu8Rt/considerations-for-growing-the-pie

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Considerations for growing the pie” by Zach Stein-Perlman

LessWrong (30+ Karma)