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Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress It doesn't seem like it is, but it may very well be a great contribution. If y
by Confusion 17y ago
Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress
It doesn't seem like it is, but it may very well be a great contribution. If you make it easier for many people to find something, what do they do with the aggregate free time they now have on their hands? If you make it cheaper, what do they do with the aggregate 'unused' money? If the time and money enables yet another 'simple' contribution to freeing up time and money, then how far does this snowball roll? Perhaps it will end up freeing us to do humanitarian work, because there is really nothing else that requires our time and money?
It's a similar question to: "What most reduces human suffering? If Eliezer keeps doing what he is doing or if he goes to Africa and helps people survive in a refugee camp?" It may turn out you are wrong about everything and helping in a camp would have been better for humanity. Hindsight is 20/20 here and the scale of effects does not allow one to properly estimate them.