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Why would effective altruists or longtermists be putting more people into cotton fields and sweatshops? Have any of them proposed doing that instead of making l

Why would effective altruists or longtermists be putting more people into cotton fields and sweatshops? Have any of them proposed doing that instead of making life better?

surgical_fire 3y ago
This is actually answered in the article, if one bothers to read it. Quite a long text, but not bad at all. > All that matters is the total net sum. For example, imagine that there are 1 trillion people who have lives of value ‘1’, meaning that they are just barely worth living. This gives a total value of 1 trillion. Now consider an alternative universe in which 1 billion people have lives with a value of ‘999’, meaning that their lives are extremely good. This gives a total value of 999 billion. Since 999 billion is less than 1 trillion, the first world full of lives hardly worth living would be morally better than the second world, and hence, if a utilitarian were forced to choose between these, she would pick the former. (This is called the ‘repugnant conclusion’, which longtermists such as Ord, MacAskill and Greaves recently argued shouldn’t be taken very seriously. For them, the first world really might be better!)
- _0ffh 3y ago
  That's Utilitarianism of the kind that e.g. Eliezer preaches. Which leads to the question, are all longtermists really utilitarians like that? (The article seems to insist, even while acknowledging that at least some explicitly say they're not.)
  - imtringued 3y ago
    The difference is that normal utilitarians want to have high certainty that what they are doing is a net good while longtermists actually don't care if the outcome will be reached or not, essentially allowing a loophole for negative utility to slip in.
    - _0ffh 3y ago
      That certainly looks like a problem. Personally, I wouldn't go near anything like that anyway. On one hand it seems prudent to me to consider the likely consequences of your actions, even long term, although such projections should be suitably discounted for their rapidly increasing uncertainty. On the other hand I find the idea that you can quantify utility and do calculations with it to compare societal outcomes philosophically wrong, even naive. Should the outcomes of these calculations then be used to justify overriding the personal life choices of others, for the greater good™, it becomes outright evil. My personal ethics is more of a deontological one.
- goatlover 3y ago
  Sounds like an argument against utilitarianism in general. If you're forcing people to make train trolley kind of choices, then every ethical position is going to sound unappealing. I still don't see where effective altruists and longtermists are advocating for more sweat shops and slaving away in cotton fields.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    Some of them have said that we should ignore poor countries and only focus on people in rich countries.

Why would effective altruists or longtermists be putting more people into cotton fields and sweatshops? Have any of them proposed doing that instead of making life better?

surgical_fire 3y ago

This is actually answered in the article, if one bothers to read it. Quite a long text, but not bad at all. > All that matters is the total net sum. For example, imagine that there are 1 trillion people who have lives of value ‘1’, meaning that they are just barely worth living. This gives a total value of 1 trillion. Now consider an alternative universe in which 1 billion people have lives with a value of ‘999’, meaning that their lives are extremely good. This gives a total value of 999 billion. Since 999 billion is less than 1 trillion, the first world full of lives hardly worth living would be morally better than the second world, and hence, if a utilitarian were forced to choose between these, she would pick the former. (This is called the ‘repugnant conclusion’, which longtermists such as Ord, MacAskill and Greaves recently argued shouldn’t be taken very seriously. For them, the first world really might be better!)

_0ffh 3y ago
That's Utilitarianism of the kind that e.g. Eliezer preaches. Which leads to the question, are all longtermists really utilitarians like that? (The article seems to insist, even while acknowledging that at least some explicitly say they're not.)
- imtringued 3y ago
  The difference is that normal utilitarians want to have high certainty that what they are doing is a net good while longtermists actually don't care if the outcome will be reached or not, essentially allowing a loophole for negative utility to slip in.
  - _0ffh 3y ago
    That certainly looks like a problem. Personally, I wouldn't go near anything like that anyway. On one hand it seems prudent to me to consider the likely consequences of your actions, even long term, although such projections should be suitably discounted for their rapidly increasing uncertainty. On the other hand I find the idea that you can quantify utility and do calculations with it to compare societal outcomes philosophically wrong, even naive. Should the outcomes of these calculations then be used to justify overriding the personal life choices of others, for the greater good™, it becomes outright evil. My personal ethics is more of a deontological one.
goatlover 3y ago
Sounds like an argument against utilitarianism in general. If you're forcing people to make train trolley kind of choices, then every ethical position is going to sound unappealing. I still don't see where effective altruists and longtermists are advocating for more sweat shops and slaving away in cotton fields.
- imtringued 3y ago
  Some of them have said that we should ignore poor countries and only focus on people in rich countries.