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I genuinely feel horrified by that. Like, it legitimately alarms me in the same way I'd be alarmed to find out everyone else in a room with me is a psychopath.

I genuinely feel horrified by that. Like, it legitimately alarms me in the same way I'd be alarmed to find out everyone else in a room with me is a psychopath. I'm not very personally frightened to think that most people would be fine with me being hurt- it's not an imminent threat. I still feel a deep discomfort from the idea that people could just be okay with people suffering. Obviously this is more acute with people in other countries than people who do not yet exist, and I have some allowance for laziness. But... people are genuinely fine with the idea that people starve to death? That's horrifying.

stdbrouw 9y ago
> I still feel a deep discomfort from the idea that people could just be okay with people suffering. But future people don't exist. If a nuclear holocaust wipes us all out, they will never exist, and hence will never suffer. So really it depends on whether you consider "the continued existence of the human race" to be a moral imperative or whether you don't.
Zhyl 9y ago
You may be interested in this article [1] by David Wong (author of 'John Dies at the end'). It pretty much sums up the attitude in the parent comment and why, to a greater or lesser extent, we are all subject to it. [1] http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html/ http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html/
NiklasMort 9y ago
The state of the world proves to you that basically everybody is a "psychopath". We are all self obsessed and our empathy barely reaches to our next door neighbor. The world is a mad house, is this really news to you?
mmirate 9y ago
On the contrary. I can't imagine experiencing the emotions of all the people in 10000AD; at our current population growth rate, 10000AD will witness an unfathomable number of human beings! Being concerned about all those people is far too much emotional stress for any one mind. (Of course, experiencing others' emotions can in general be debilitating. Obviously, then, experiencing trillions of others' emotions would be trillionsfold worse.)
- hwillis 9y ago
  I mean for people you havent and never will meet; I can somewhat understand for people that dont actually exist yet. I'm not thinking of personally being aware of them and i can even rationalize not finding strangers to be tangible. I understand the bystander effect and all that. There are any number of ways I can accept not doing anything, but the idea that someone could legitimately just not care is deeply unsettling. Like, for the bystander effect to apply a person has to care and then think "someone should do something". Its the idea that someone can instead just not care even superficially that is disturbing.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    > Like, for the bystander effect to apply a person has to care and then think "someone should do something". Its the idea that someone can instead just not care even superficially that is disturbing. To me, the idea that someone think "someone should do something" about that "something" is disturbing. But this is HN, the place where those that make $100k/year a more wax poetically about the plight of poor people in third world countries while munching on the cheese and drinking the wine thinking that it is the waxing that counts.
dionidium 9y ago
Consider that apathy and ambivalence are an enormous improvement over the abject animosity, antipathy, and aversion in-groups have felt toward out-groups for most of human history. This represents improvement.
akvadrako 9y ago
You shouldn't be alarmed about people being psychopaths, because as you see empathy doesn't get you very far. To reliably care about the far future, it has to be a rational decision, not an emotional one.
ThomPete 9y ago
Thats the wrong way to look at it IMO. The question is before you even start throwing the moral gauntlet on other people, what are you doing about it? Now you might be doing something but then the question is whether you are actually doing something about it. There are plenty of arguments for why ex. doing NGO work or sponsoring a child is doing more harm than good and actually hurting. So I wouldn't be so fast to cast judgement. I don't think you find many people who don't care about other people suffering intellectually. The question is whether they are choosing to suffer more others to suffer less.
- hwillis 9y ago
  Thats a tu quoque fallacy[1] and also fails on a couple levels to address what I mean. First off I'm not making a moral judgement, and I'm not talking about actions at all. I'm not even trying to judge them at all. They made an assertion about humanity and i find that assertion alarming, but i didnt try to reflect it on them and stayed as impersonal as I could. Its the intentions i was concerned about, not the effects. They were describing people who dont even care intellectually- thats freaky to think about. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    The point I was trying to make is maybe you and the parent aren't that different you just talk about it different ways.

stdbrouw 9y ago

> I still feel a deep discomfort from the idea that people could just be okay with people suffering. But future people don't exist. If a nuclear holocaust wipes us all out, they will never exist, and hence will never suffer. So really it depends on whether you consider "the continued existence of the human race" to be a moral imperative or whether you don't.

Zhyl 9y ago

You may be interested in this article [1] by David Wong (author of 'John Dies at the end'). It pretty much sums up the attitude in the parent comment and why, to a greater or lesser extent, we are all subject to it. [1] http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html/ http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html/

NiklasMort 9y ago

The state of the world proves to you that basically everybody is a "psychopath". We are all self obsessed and our empathy barely reaches to our next door neighbor. The world is a mad house, is this really news to you?

mmirate 9y ago

On the contrary. I can't imagine experiencing the emotions of all the people in 10000AD; at our current population growth rate, 10000AD will witness an unfathomable number of human beings! Being concerned about all those people is far too much emotional stress for any one mind. (Of course, experiencing others' emotions can in general be debilitating. Obviously, then, experiencing trillions of others' emotions would be trillionsfold worse.)

hwillis 9y ago
I mean for people you havent and never will meet; I can somewhat understand for people that dont actually exist yet. I'm not thinking of personally being aware of them and i can even rationalize not finding strangers to be tangible. I understand the bystander effect and all that. There are any number of ways I can accept not doing anything, but the idea that someone could legitimately just not care is deeply unsettling. Like, for the bystander effect to apply a person has to care and then think "someone should do something". Its the idea that someone can instead just not care even superficially that is disturbing.
- notyourday 9y ago
  > Like, for the bystander effect to apply a person has to care and then think "someone should do something". Its the idea that someone can instead just not care even superficially that is disturbing. To me, the idea that someone think "someone should do something" about that "something" is disturbing. But this is HN, the place where those that make $100k/year a more wax poetically about the plight of poor people in third world countries while munching on the cheese and drinking the wine thinking that it is the waxing that counts.

dionidium 9y ago

Consider that apathy and ambivalence are an enormous improvement over the abject animosity, antipathy, and aversion in-groups have felt toward out-groups for most of human history. This represents improvement.

akvadrako 9y ago

You shouldn't be alarmed about people being psychopaths, because as you see empathy doesn't get you very far. To reliably care about the far future, it has to be a rational decision, not an emotional one.

ThomPete 9y ago

Thats the wrong way to look at it IMO. The question is before you even start throwing the moral gauntlet on other people, what are you doing about it? Now you might be doing something but then the question is whether you are actually doing something about it. There are plenty of arguments for why ex. doing NGO work or sponsoring a child is doing more harm than good and actually hurting. So I wouldn't be so fast to cast judgement. I don't think you find many people who don't care about other people suffering intellectually. The question is whether they are choosing to suffer more others to suffer less.

hwillis 9y ago
Thats a tu quoque fallacy[1] and also fails on a couple levels to address what I mean. First off I'm not making a moral judgement, and I'm not talking about actions at all. I'm not even trying to judge them at all. They made an assertion about humanity and i find that assertion alarming, but i didnt try to reflect it on them and stayed as impersonal as I could. Its the intentions i was concerned about, not the effects. They were describing people who dont even care intellectually- thats freaky to think about. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- ThomPete 9y ago
  The point I was trying to make is maybe you and the parent aren't that different you just talk about it different ways.