4 ms·
There's a Pascal's wager in this situation. In the worst case, there's no cognitive effect from pollution, but you clean up the environment anyway. Even without
by Silixon 8y ago
There's a Pascal's wager in this situation. In the worst case, there's no cognitive effect from pollution, but you clean up the environment anyway. Even without the possibility of improving your ability to reason, there are many other obvious benefits to reducing pollution, quitting smoking, and many other major changes about which the effects have been debated and exaggerated over time.
- marcusjt 8y agoSee also "The Precautionary Principle", which environmental policy should ideally always follow but alas all too often doesn't, as in this case.
- zeveb 8y ago> There's a Pascal's wager in this situation. In the worst case, there's no cognitive effect from pollution, but you clean up the environment anyway. And, as with Pascal's wager, that's unconvincing: one could spend all that money differently, on things one would like (just as in Pascal's wager, choosing to believe in God isn't cost-free: it means loving others, being charitable &c., even if one would rather not).
- Sangermaine 8y ago>(just as in Pascal's wager, choosing to believe in God isn't cost-free: it means loving others, being charitable &c., even if one would rather not) "What if you were a good person for no reason?" is perhaps the most Hacker News comment I've ever read.
- antt 8y ago>there's no cognitive effect from pollution The worst case is that there is a positive effect from pollution. When one looks at the historic data it wasn't until people started living in smog filled cities that children started attending schools. We shouldn't fall into the trap of assuming causation and correlation just because it gels with something in your subconscious.