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> In 2010, New York randomly chose homeless applicants to participate in its Homebase program, and tracked those who were not allowed into the program as a cont

by xg15 4y ago

> In 2010, New York randomly chose homeless applicants to participate in its Homebase program, and tracked those who were not allowed into the program as a control group. The program was helping as many people as it could, the only change was explicitly labeling a number of people it wasn’t helping as a “control group”. You could also interpret this in a different way: The experiment did some good, but at the same time established a ceiling after which doing even more good would run contrary to the experiment's interests. E.g., if some miracle happened and the city council suddenly had the means to include every homeless person into the program, this would actually be highly problematic for the program, because now they'd be lacking a control group. So by running the program, the council may help some homeless people, but at the same time it has an active interest that the other homeless are not helped. I think this is the difference in general this article glosses over. It's not about doing a little good vs doing a lot of good, it's about not wanting to do more than a certain amount of good, even if you could.

burrows 4y ago
> I think this is the difference in general this article glosses over. It's not about doing a little good vs doing a lot of good, it's about not wanting to do more than a certain amount of good, even if you could. What is the word “wanting” naming? Can you tell me how to observe this phenomena with one of my senses? If not, then in what way is that sentence meaningful?
- xg15 4y ago
  There are many things in this world which you can't observe with your senses but which nevertheless exist. However in the current case, the people who took issue with the city council's project were apparently perfectly able to spot the difference with their senses, so if you can't then I'm sorry for you. But sorry, "wanting" doesn't really cut it. I don't think many people object if you donate $50 even though you could technically donate $100 or if you don't allocate your complete spare time to community service. (Or at least I hope no one does). But one reason why that's not an issue is because someone else could pitch in do the work instead. What I meant were cases where you wouldn't want anyone to help because if the situation inproved beyond a certain level this would actually results in a worse situation for you. So "want" in this context would be about conflicting goals.
  - burrows 4y ago
    > There are many things in this world which you can't observe with your senses but which nevertheless exist. Such as? > So "want" in this context would be about conflicting goals. Do tell, how can I observe a goal with my senses?

by xg15 4y ago

burrows 4y ago

> I think this is the difference in general this article glosses over. It's not about doing a little good vs doing a lot of good, it's about not wanting to do more than a certain amount of good, even if you could. What is the word “wanting” naming? Can you tell me how to observe this phenomena with one of my senses? If not, then in what way is that sentence meaningful?

xg15 4y ago
There are many things in this world which you can't observe with your senses but which nevertheless exist. However in the current case, the people who took issue with the city council's project were apparently perfectly able to spot the difference with their senses, so if you can't then I'm sorry for you. But sorry, "wanting" doesn't really cut it. I don't think many people object if you donate $50 even though you could technically donate $100 or if you don't allocate your complete spare time to community service. (Or at least I hope no one does). But one reason why that's not an issue is because someone else could pitch in do the work instead. What I meant were cases where you wouldn't want anyone to help because if the situation inproved beyond a certain level this would actually results in a worse situation for you. So "want" in this context would be about conflicting goals.
- burrows 4y ago
  > There are many things in this world which you can't observe with your senses but which nevertheless exist. Such as? > So "want" in this context would be about conflicting goals. Do tell, how can I observe a goal with my senses?