Oh no worries at all. I didn't respond because I was out and about and typing out comments on my phone is a massive pain in the ass. I didn't find any of your comments unreasonable.
Why should anyone bother donating to help animals? You can save human lives. If that's the most important thing anyone can do, why bother with animals? And how do you measure effectiveness?
It seems like the soup givers and the animal lovers are listening to their feelings.
I don't think that the only reason to care about animals is because of feelings. It seems immoral to torture animals, for instance, and if one thinks humans matter but animals don't, it's hard to figure out why humans would matter and animals wouldn't. For that reason, I think it's reasonable to donate to animal charities.
It’s cheaper to save animal lives. Depending on how you measure it, the same $5000 that saves 1 human life can be used to save 20,000 animal lives. Now if you have the same intuitions as me, the human life is more important, but I don’t begrudge anyone that thinks 20,000 animals are more important than a human.
I guess but where does it end? I mean why is saving animals more rational then donating to a fund for people who want to get plastic surgery or virtually any other cause? It seems like it circles back to the problem they are trying to avoid—people choosing with their hearts.
Different people have different values. EAs will generally think that it's better to give to some charity that is better according to ones values than one that is worse even if one's values aren't ultimately correct. I'd much rather people help humans more rather than less, even though I think people should probably mostly be donating to animal charities. So for this reason, I'd recommend people give to effective charities saving humans over their current suite of charities, even if giving to animal charities is even better.
There are many different answer for this question, but the easiest to explain is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism has a hard time deciding if 1 human life is more valuable than 20000 animal lives, but it clearly implies both more important than plastic surgery.
I think it's not a very good philosophy. It always seems like these big brained types try to put math on everything as if something countable is somehow more valid. 'We can save nine trillion blades of grass from the mower this year for the cost of a 7up" (footnote says: actually this is a wild guess. but a wild guess by the very intelligent)
Because one of the things we might be, behind the veil of ignorance, is a chicken being tortured to death, more of them are tortured to death every year than the entire human population, and a dollar goes furthest in effective advocacy that convinces people to make lasting changes to their diet.
What makes you think it's based upon irrational emotion? The experience of extreme torture being bad is the best candidate for a moral fundamental. It's cool reason that leads to Bentham's famous line: the question isn't whether they're conspecifics or whether they're smart enough, but whether and how much they suffer.
If we saved all the children then great, let's have a coke and save some chickens. But if you can put money towards saving a child's life then anything else seems irrational.
The appeal is quite bluntedwhen you also claim that the chances of any action being good or bad are almost exactly 50%. I would say blunted by around 90%, from an emotional level. I guess the 1% pledge is still something, though. Hopefully givewell isn't a scam!
I think it does when you're making an emotional argument, which your post does here because you're actually trying to get people to give, instead of explaining why they should give. I will take your word on givewell!
Well, people who are really bad at math and don't want to get better probably shouldn't read that post, then.
If you imagine a roulette wheel which, instead of green numbers, has one red number removed, then an even-odds bet on black will generally be a wise decision, despite the odds of a win on that particular spin veing close to 50:50.
I am aware of what EV is, but making claims like "It’s hard to overstate just how valuable taking the pledge is. Giving to effective charities and convincing others to do the same is almost surely the most valuable thing I’ll ever do."
While also saying that the chances that taking the pledge will do anything good are very very low is not a compelling case. Matthew is making wildly overblown emotional claims, and then falling back on a minimally persuasive EV argument.
I just googled you benton. I'm so sorry. I didn't know you were only a kid.
Oh no worries at all. I didn't respond because I was out and about and typing out comments on my phone is a massive pain in the ass. I didn't find any of your comments unreasonable.
Why should anyone bother donating to help animals? You can save human lives. If that's the most important thing anyone can do, why bother with animals? And how do you measure effectiveness?
It seems like the soup givers and the animal lovers are listening to their feelings.
I don't think that the only reason to care about animals is because of feelings. It seems immoral to torture animals, for instance, and if one thinks humans matter but animals don't, it's hard to figure out why humans would matter and animals wouldn't. For that reason, I think it's reasonable to donate to animal charities.
It’s cheaper to save animal lives. Depending on how you measure it, the same $5000 that saves 1 human life can be used to save 20,000 animal lives. Now if you have the same intuitions as me, the human life is more important, but I don’t begrudge anyone that thinks 20,000 animals are more important than a human.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/s/r7tONVcmYj
I guess but where does it end? I mean why is saving animals more rational then donating to a fund for people who want to get plastic surgery or virtually any other cause? It seems like it circles back to the problem they are trying to avoid—people choosing with their hearts.
Different people have different values. EAs will generally think that it's better to give to some charity that is better according to ones values than one that is worse even if one's values aren't ultimately correct. I'd much rather people help humans more rather than less, even though I think people should probably mostly be donating to animal charities. So for this reason, I'd recommend people give to effective charities saving humans over their current suite of charities, even if giving to animal charities is even better.
There are many different answer for this question, but the easiest to explain is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism has a hard time deciding if 1 human life is more valuable than 20000 animal lives, but it clearly implies both more important than plastic surgery.
I think it's not a very good philosophy. It always seems like these big brained types try to put math on everything as if something countable is somehow more valid. 'We can save nine trillion blades of grass from the mower this year for the cost of a 7up" (footnote says: actually this is a wild guess. but a wild guess by the very intelligent)
Would you rather me kill 2 people or 1 person?
I'd rather you not kill. That seems like an awful burden to put on me.
Because one of the things we might be, behind the veil of ignorance, is a chicken being tortured to death, more of them are tortured to death every year than the entire human population, and a dollar goes furthest in effective advocacy that convinces people to make lasting changes to their diet.
I thought the point of the article and ea in general was to put aside emotions. What does a chicken's life matter compared to a human child?
What makes you think it's based upon irrational emotion? The experience of extreme torture being bad is the best candidate for a moral fundamental. It's cool reason that leads to Bentham's famous line: the question isn't whether they're conspecifics or whether they're smart enough, but whether and how much they suffer.
If we saved all the children then great, let's have a coke and save some chickens. But if you can put money towards saving a child's life then anything else seems irrational.
If you can prevent thousands of lives of pure torture for the same cost as preventing one death in lesser suffering, to do otherwise seems irrational.
That's the problem with EA, it's supposed to be rational, but it's still people giving according to what gives them the feels.
The appeal is quite bluntedwhen you also claim that the chances of any action being good or bad are almost exactly 50%. I would say blunted by around 90%, from an emotional level. I guess the 1% pledge is still something, though. Hopefully givewell isn't a scam!
You can read their research in detail. And I don't think that the kind of reasoning according to which all our actions have unpredictable side effects should undermine the case for giving, as I explain here https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-badness-rate-of-apparent-bads?utm_source=publication-search
I think it does when you're making an emotional argument, which your post does here because you're actually trying to get people to give, instead of explaining why they should give. I will take your word on givewell!
Well, people who are really bad at math and don't want to get better probably shouldn't read that post, then.
If you imagine a roulette wheel which, instead of green numbers, has one red number removed, then an even-odds bet on black will generally be a wise decision, despite the odds of a win on that particular spin veing close to 50:50.
I am aware of what EV is, but making claims like "It’s hard to overstate just how valuable taking the pledge is. Giving to effective charities and convincing others to do the same is almost surely the most valuable thing I’ll ever do."
While also saying that the chances that taking the pledge will do anything good are very very low is not a compelling case. Matthew is making wildly overblown emotional claims, and then falling back on a minimally persuasive EV argument.