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I have trouble seeing it this way. The money spent running the train could save or improve many other lives instead. It's heartwarming and all, but consider the

by qrendel 11y ago

I have trouble seeing it this way. The money spent running the train could save or improve many other lives instead. It's heartwarming and all, but consider the other people who are being left to die or suffer malnutrition or some other malady that could have been fixed with the resources used to get this girl to and from school. It could be argued that the hope and inspiration and good feels justify it as a utilitarian decision, or that some portion of the world's energy should be diverted to these sorts of situations anyway - like some sort of lottery - or justified on non-utilitarian grounds. But I can't help but see it as an example of how major global problems continue because humans can't prioritize their caring towards those that need it the most.

droithomme 11y ago
Hopefully with your great compassion for others you will be donating most of your income to stop this malnutrition and suffering in the third world that would otherwise be stopping this girl from getting to school.
- drcode 11y ago
  Why is grendel responsible for the (potentially) poor financial decisions of Japan Railways?
- qrendel 11y ago
  I'd hoped it wouldn't need to be stated, but I'm definitely glad they're doing something valuable with the resources. I was just pointing out an alternative reaction to the article. Of course it's far far better than if the money was being spent in a worse way - e.g. funding some irrational government policy to further some incumbent's chances of reelection. (Not living in Japan I'm not aware of a good relevant example from that country.) I'll skip inundating the thread with some personal defense of whether I'm a hypocrit or not. I agree with what TeMPOral said about it being a positive symbol, and was just pointing out another way that it's a negative one. "We've come a long way but we still have a long way to go" sort of thing.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    You have a good point and it is definitely not hypocritical. I addressed it in the response to your comment upthread, but let me do a tl;dr of it here: I came to believe that you simply can't expect 100% efficiency from humans. We're not wired that way. If too much is required from us - like being asked to donate all surplus beyond sustenance level to charity - we simply stop caring at all. On the other hand, a positive emotional nudge can make us care more. Helping effectively means taking into account our own psychological makeup.
- baddox 11y ago
  And similarly, hopefully anyone applauding this train situation would gladly pay to keep it running themselves, instead of reveling in the incredible human capacity for being generous with other people's money.
  - pm24601 11y ago
    You just said more about yourself than you probably intended.
mchaver 11y ago
I see it more as a neighbor helping a neighbor out in their area of expertise. Train companies are, presumably, good at running trains so the best sort of charity train companies can offer to its customers and potential customers are train services. It is a heartwarming act on top of being good PR. Similar to the way a restaurant or grocery store might donate food or a barber give free haircuts. Of course, they can also donate money, but offering ones skills and time often seem to have a more direct impact.
- SiVal 11y ago
  I'm afraid I don't see it that way at all. This sort of thing is dealt with all the time in the rural US, but in the relative absence of big government public transportation systems, the school district will get the one girl to school by negotiating a year of discounted rides (bulk purchase) from a car or van service with some reimbursement from the state. No more parties need to be involved, making it fairly efficient. Japan should be doing it that way, too. Train companies in Japan aren't small businesses with kindly old proprietors; they are VERY complex businesses enormously tangled in cross-company ownership (our system owns 40% of yours, yours owns 40% of ours), government ownership, heavy government regulation with negotiated compromises (you have to serve these needs or we won't let you share that track), heavy union obligations, negotiated right-of-way through communities (if you won't service this line, we won't let you stop at the main station), etc., etc. After living in Japan for many years, I'm afraid this sounds to more like a situation where keeping the train running for one person, though extravagantly wasteful, probably solved multiple practical problems simultaneously (fulfilling union employment agreements, rural service agreements, etc.) along with perhaps the greatest benefit: getting things done in Japanese bureaucracies requires so much negotiation among so many parties that just continuing to do what you have been doing (just keep running the train) is just SO much easier than changing the system--the system has so much inertia--that just letting it go on a couple of years longer was probably the easy way. The fact that it wasn't close to the cheapest way wouldn't necessarily matter to governments, unions, corporate managers and others spending Other People's Money. I'm not implying anything about Japanese kindness. The Japanese do very kind things all the time, but this doesn't seem like one of them. I don't think kindness has much to do with it, because a private car service would be just as kind as making her stand alone twice a day on a freezing Hokkaido train platform and dramatically cheaper.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Yes, there are many ways this marginal money expenditure could be put to a better use. Most of those scenarios, however, would never happen, because human organizations are nowhere near that efficient. The most likely outcome of closing the station would be the money getting distributed between organizational overhead and bumping up someone's salary a little bit. Or maybe another company project would get finished little faster. I agree that we should prioritize things and aim for maximum effectiveness of our help. But humans are complex beings - we react to examples and positive stories, which often encourage us to change our behaviors. If seeing positive stories like this can make some people even a little more kind, or inspire them to do some good, then those stories are of great value. And if we can encourage people to do good by praising even somewhat inefficient acts of kindness, maybe the next group will figure out a more cost-effective way. It definitely beats no one being inspired to do anything good at all. Eliezer once wrote a very interesting article "Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately"[0]. His point was that out of the things we get from helping others - warm fuzzy feelings, status increase and the actual results - "all three of these things—warm fuzzies, status, and expected utilons—can be bought far more efficiently when you buy separately, optimizing for only one thing at a time". I kind of agree with this approach, and I think story is mostly about buying fuzzies, not utilons. Yet we are just humans - we need some fuzzies too. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...
- im2w1l 11y ago
  Looking through the comment section, it seems you get fuzzies out it, but not the majority of people.
  - jsmeaton 11y ago
    HN comments aren't really the place for "me too" responses, but this story gave me some warm fuzzies. It was a nice story, despite the obvious inefficiencies that'll be ending very soon anyway.
    - im2w1l 11y ago
caf 11y ago
It's not actually money spent running the train - the train would run anyway, and will continue to run - it's just a matter of whether it stops at that platform or blows through. You wouldn't think the marginal cost would be much.
jmadsen 11y ago
"The Japan Railways Group, more commonly known as JR Group (JRグループ Jeiāru Gurūpu?), consists of seven for-profit companies that took over most of the assets and operations of the government-owned Japanese National Railways on April 1, 1987. Most of the liability of the JNR was assumed by the JNR Settlement Corporation." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group In short, they just agreed to give up a small bit of their own profits.

by qrendel 11y ago

droithomme 11y ago

Hopefully with your great compassion for others you will be donating most of your income to stop this malnutrition and suffering in the third world that would otherwise be stopping this girl from getting to school.

drcode 11y ago
Why is grendel responsible for the (potentially) poor financial decisions of Japan Railways?
qrendel 11y ago
I'd hoped it wouldn't need to be stated, but I'm definitely glad they're doing something valuable with the resources. I was just pointing out an alternative reaction to the article. Of course it's far far better than if the money was being spent in a worse way - e.g. funding some irrational government policy to further some incumbent's chances of reelection. (Not living in Japan I'm not aware of a good relevant example from that country.) I'll skip inundating the thread with some personal defense of whether I'm a hypocrit or not. I agree with what TeMPOral said about it being a positive symbol, and was just pointing out another way that it's a negative one. "We've come a long way but we still have a long way to go" sort of thing.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  You have a good point and it is definitely not hypocritical. I addressed it in the response to your comment upthread, but let me do a tl;dr of it here: I came to believe that you simply can't expect 100% efficiency from humans. We're not wired that way. If too much is required from us - like being asked to donate all surplus beyond sustenance level to charity - we simply stop caring at all. On the other hand, a positive emotional nudge can make us care more. Helping effectively means taking into account our own psychological makeup.
baddox 11y ago
And similarly, hopefully anyone applauding this train situation would gladly pay to keep it running themselves, instead of reveling in the incredible human capacity for being generous with other people's money.
- pm24601 11y ago
  You just said more about yourself than you probably intended.

mchaver 11y ago

I see it more as a neighbor helping a neighbor out in their area of expertise. Train companies are, presumably, good at running trains so the best sort of charity train companies can offer to its customers and potential customers are train services. It is a heartwarming act on top of being good PR. Similar to the way a restaurant or grocery store might donate food or a barber give free haircuts. Of course, they can also donate money, but offering ones skills and time often seem to have a more direct impact.

SiVal 11y ago
I'm afraid I don't see it that way at all. This sort of thing is dealt with all the time in the rural US, but in the relative absence of big government public transportation systems, the school district will get the one girl to school by negotiating a year of discounted rides (bulk purchase) from a car or van service with some reimbursement from the state. No more parties need to be involved, making it fairly efficient. Japan should be doing it that way, too. Train companies in Japan aren't small businesses with kindly old proprietors; they are VERY complex businesses enormously tangled in cross-company ownership (our system owns 40% of yours, yours owns 40% of ours), government ownership, heavy government regulation with negotiated compromises (you have to serve these needs or we won't let you share that track), heavy union obligations, negotiated right-of-way through communities (if you won't service this line, we won't let you stop at the main station), etc., etc. After living in Japan for many years, I'm afraid this sounds to more like a situation where keeping the train running for one person, though extravagantly wasteful, probably solved multiple practical problems simultaneously (fulfilling union employment agreements, rural service agreements, etc.) along with perhaps the greatest benefit: getting things done in Japanese bureaucracies requires so much negotiation among so many parties that just continuing to do what you have been doing (just keep running the train) is just SO much easier than changing the system--the system has so much inertia--that just letting it go on a couple of years longer was probably the easy way. The fact that it wasn't close to the cheapest way wouldn't necessarily matter to governments, unions, corporate managers and others spending Other People's Money. I'm not implying anything about Japanese kindness. The Japanese do very kind things all the time, but this doesn't seem like one of them. I don't think kindness has much to do with it, because a private car service would be just as kind as making her stand alone twice a day on a freezing Hokkaido train platform and dramatically cheaper.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Yes, there are many ways this marginal money expenditure could be put to a better use. Most of those scenarios, however, would never happen, because human organizations are nowhere near that efficient. The most likely outcome of closing the station would be the money getting distributed between organizational overhead and bumping up someone's salary a little bit. Or maybe another company project would get finished little faster. I agree that we should prioritize things and aim for maximum effectiveness of our help. But humans are complex beings - we react to examples and positive stories, which often encourage us to change our behaviors. If seeing positive stories like this can make some people even a little more kind, or inspire them to do some good, then those stories are of great value. And if we can encourage people to do good by praising even somewhat inefficient acts of kindness, maybe the next group will figure out a more cost-effective way. It definitely beats no one being inspired to do anything good at all. Eliezer once wrote a very interesting article "Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately"[0]. His point was that out of the things we get from helping others - warm fuzzy feelings, status increase and the actual results - "all three of these things—warm fuzzies, status, and expected utilons—can be bought far more efficiently when you buy separately, optimizing for only one thing at a time". I kind of agree with this approach, and I think story is mostly about buying fuzzies, not utilons. Yet we are just humans - we need some fuzzies too. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...

im2w1l 11y ago
Looking through the comment section, it seems you get fuzzies out it, but not the majority of people.
- jsmeaton 11y ago
  HN comments aren't really the place for "me too" responses, but this story gave me some warm fuzzies. It was a nice story, despite the obvious inefficiencies that'll be ending very soon anyway.
  - im2w1l 11y ago

caf 11y ago

It's not actually money spent running the train - the train would run anyway, and will continue to run - it's just a matter of whether it stops at that platform or blows through. You wouldn't think the marginal cost would be much.

jmadsen 11y ago

"The Japan Railways Group, more commonly known as JR Group (JRグループ Jeiāru Gurūpu?), consists of seven for-profit companies that took over most of the assets and operations of the government-owned Japanese National Railways on April 1, 1987. Most of the liability of the JNR was assumed by the JNR Settlement Corporation." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group In short, they just agreed to give up a small bit of their own profits.