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> I'd absolutely sign up for a wealth-proportional share of a tax Very gracious of you to be willing to help but only if all of society signs up to do it with

> I'd absolutely sign up for a wealth-proportional share of a tax Very gracious of you to be willing to help but only if all of society signs up to do it with you. > system that's designed to punish me for doing so above and beyond the intrinsic cost of providing for the kid Bullshit. Nobody's going to punish you for giving to charity.

Dylan16807 6y ago
> Very gracious of you to be willing to help but only if all of society signs up to do it with you. Or in other words: being willing to help if it will make a significant difference. Negotiated collective action is a good tool.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Ah, since $1000 will save a life, and you believe that giving $1000 will not make a significant difference, then one must logically conclude that it is untrue that saving a life is making a significant difference. From there, it does not take very much to conclude that human lives are not significant to you either.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Or you could opt not to be super pedantic just to score points against me. When it comes to ridding the world of severe poverty, donating enough to help one person is not _________. If you object to the term "significant", then go ahead and pick a better term.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      I don't object to the term. I think any thing that fills in the gap that implies value will lead to the same conclusion. I don't think that's surprising since the evidence is really strong in favour of that conclusion: arbitrary human life has very little value. It is certainly true that almost all individuals behave in a manner consistent with this being true, at least. I personally believe it is nearer zero, but it is clearly less valuable than whatever value most individuals ascribe to ten hundred dollar bills.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        The value depends on context. The punishment for hurting someone is much higher than the amount it takes to help someone. And spending a thousand dollars to help an anonymous person, who is in a sea of people not getting help, and will fall back into that sea soon enough, feels like tossing it into a black hole when the donation is all by itself. But if there's enough donations together, they feel more meaningful. You're measuring value in just about the weakest possible context. People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem.
        chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        > People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem. This sounds a lot like saying its not worth it to help one person.
        buran77 6y ago
        More like "there is so much less value in spending money for painkillers for you today when it could be spent for a cure for everybody forever". If a dentist never pulled out a tooth and just charged for morphine now and again you'd be pissed instead of being relieved that they made you feel well just for one day. Not only do you still suffer (but with timeouts), you also payed more long term. If everyone just takes turns pushing a boulder up a mountain eventually you'll put in more effort than if everyone pushes at once, and have almost none of the results. Sometimes being even 99% there is not enough.
        winston_smith 6y ago
        I too have seen the Facebook chain letter about how we could end world poverty for only $XX billion. But yes, let's definitely not fund malaria relief in the meantime.
        buran77 6y ago
        Besides the unwarranted and unhelpful snark, you also took the weaker interpretation of my comment so you can defend your point of view. Neither are good signs for your argument. I said "less value" not "no value". In general there's less value in providing fragmented help in small chunks to individual people than there is in providing help via a large coordinated effort to entire populations. Even if the total is the same, the fact that it just trickled in and it lacked coordination can only hurt. I even gave an example, perhaps a better one would have been that you can't cross a canyon in 2 steps. And you won't effectively put out a big fire no matter how many cups of water you individually dump on it. Fittingly even the example you chose is bad simply because "malaria relief" still involves quite the coordinated effort, not the least financial, not individual people independently sending small help to a single other person.

Dylan16807 6y ago

> Very gracious of you to be willing to help but only if all of society signs up to do it with you. Or in other words: being willing to help if it will make a significant difference. Negotiated collective action is a good tool.

renewiltord 6y ago
Ah, since $1000 will save a life, and you believe that giving $1000 will not make a significant difference, then one must logically conclude that it is untrue that saving a life is making a significant difference. From there, it does not take very much to conclude that human lives are not significant to you either.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  Or you could opt not to be super pedantic just to score points against me. When it comes to ridding the world of severe poverty, donating enough to help one person is not _________. If you object to the term "significant", then go ahead and pick a better term.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I don't object to the term. I think any thing that fills in the gap that implies value will lead to the same conclusion. I don't think that's surprising since the evidence is really strong in favour of that conclusion: arbitrary human life has very little value. It is certainly true that almost all individuals behave in a manner consistent with this being true, at least. I personally believe it is nearer zero, but it is clearly less valuable than whatever value most individuals ascribe to ten hundred dollar bills.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      The value depends on context. The punishment for hurting someone is much higher than the amount it takes to help someone. And spending a thousand dollars to help an anonymous person, who is in a sea of people not getting help, and will fall back into that sea soon enough, feels like tossing it into a black hole when the donation is all by itself. But if there's enough donations together, they feel more meaningful. You're measuring value in just about the weakest possible context. People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem.
      - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        > People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem. This sounds a lot like saying its not worth it to help one person.
        buran77 6y ago
        More like "there is so much less value in spending money for painkillers for you today when it could be spent for a cure for everybody forever". If a dentist never pulled out a tooth and just charged for morphine now and again you'd be pissed instead of being relieved that they made you feel well just for one day. Not only do you still suffer (but with timeouts), you also payed more long term. If everyone just takes turns pushing a boulder up a mountain eventually you'll put in more effort than if everyone pushes at once, and have almost none of the results. Sometimes being even 99% there is not enough.
        winston_smith 6y ago
        I too have seen the Facebook chain letter about how we could end world poverty for only $XX billion. But yes, let's definitely not fund malaria relief in the meantime.
        buran77 6y ago
        Besides the unwarranted and unhelpful snark, you also took the weaker interpretation of my comment so you can defend your point of view. Neither are good signs for your argument. I said "less value" not "no value". In general there's less value in providing fragmented help in small chunks to individual people than there is in providing help via a large coordinated effort to entire populations. Even if the total is the same, the fact that it just trickled in and it lacked coordination can only hurt. I even gave an example, perhaps a better one would have been that you can't cross a canyon in 2 steps. And you won't effectively put out a big fire no matter how many cups of water you individually dump on it. Fittingly even the example you chose is bad simply because "malaria relief" still involves quite the coordinated effort, not the least financial, not individual people independently sending small help to a single other person.