Let's take the drowning child. Suppose you save the child and walk by the pond again the next day. There's another child drowning. Do you save it? Suppose you w

Let's take the drowning child. Suppose you save the child and walk by the pond again the next day. There's another child drowning. Do you save it? Suppose you walk by the pond everyday and everyday there's another child drowning. Is there a point where you would not save the child? I think the vast majority of people would eventually stop saving the kid. I think that's because shame is what motivates the decision.Eventually they no longer feel shame pushing them to save the children. If they knew there would be a new child drowning everyday on the very first day would they save the child? I think it's likely that many people would not. Saving the child is admitting you have some responsibility for what happens to it. If you know that you will eventually stop it feels a lot better to never admit you're responsible for the child. Shame is a powerful emotion but once people start meta-thinking about it it's easy for them to get around it with mental gymnastics. EA is effectively a utility monster, so it's not surprising to me that people mental-gymnastics their way out of it. EA needs to focus more on tractability of these problems and less on the bottomless pit if they want mass buy in. Because in the end donating to AMF doesn't actually feel that great when you it makes you realize hundreds of thousands of children are dying from preventable disease every year. It feels a lot better to pretend the problem doesn't exist so you can ignore the shame and focus on less important issues instead.