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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   37041 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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I was just going to post this, lol. Why the hell is Scott posting fallacies on Twitter now? I know he's a clear thinker in general, so why is he being obviously stupid here? (I'll explain the fallacy below).

Here's his tweet:

I went on a walk and saw a child drowning in the river. I was going to jump in and save him, when someone reminded me that I should care about family members more than strangers. So I continued on my way and let him drown.

This might take a bit of context for the unordained to understand. Let me explain. This tweet references three things.

  1. The philosophy of Peter Singer. In "The Life You Can Save", he writes about a thought experiment. If you saw a child drowning, you would jump in and save him, even if you ruined your $1000 suit. So why don't you give $1000 to charity and save a life in Africa? (Pretend, for the sake of argument this is actually possible).

  2. The meme that white progressives care more about people in other countries than their own people. They have pro-outgroup bias. This is opposed to the 99% of people who show concentric lines of caring. They care about family, then friends, then neighbors, then countrymen, then foreigners. Presumably, this makes white progressives bad allies since they will betray their own to help others. It is sometimes depicted with this jpeg.

  3. Trump canceling all grants to NGOs. Amongst the sea of graft and Marxism, there were some actual effective programs too. The one everyone is getting excited about is PEPFAR, which has been credited with saving millions of African lives by providing cheap AIDS medications. (Note: It is generally impossible for AIDS to become widespread in a heterosexual population. It spreads in Africa because of the cultural practice of "dry sex".)

The fallacy here is that Scott is comparing canceling PEPFAR to letting the child drown.

But why is it a fallacy?

Because, in the child drowning scenario, only YOU can save the child. If you take no action, the child will drown. But if the US cancels PEPFAR, then other countries, NGOs, and citizens can and will fill in the gap. This is not something that only the US can do. In fact, governments are often uniquely bad at delivering aid.

Scott knows this of course. Does he just not care, or is it TDS? I think maybe he is willing to lie and manipulate to achieve an otherwise worthy goal. But, if so, why should I listen to him at all if he's just trying to manipulate me?

For the record, I think the US should continue to fund PEPFAR because it's apparently extremely effective so it's worth the cost even if it otherwise goes against my desire for a much smaller and less corrupt US government. I don't know why Scott didn't just say that instead of his lame attempt at a dunk.

But if the US cancels PEPFAR, then other countries, NGOs, and citizens can and will fill in the gap

Where did you get this idea from? I don't see any strong reason to assume this will fully happen within the next decade, or that the funding for the PEPFAR replacement will be as large as PEPFAR currently is. It might happen, but it also might not happen. And in the meantime, a lot of medical treatment won't be provided.

don't know why Scott didn't just say that instead of his lame attempt at a dunk.

Because he was making a political joke on twitter. Please read his twitter bio: "I have a place where I say complicated things about philosophy and science. That place is my blog. This is where I make terrible puns." He's made plenty of complicated arguments about EA on his blog. People are holding this tweet to a much higher standard than they would any other tweet because they really want to own the libs, but it's a fine tweet.

For the record, I think the US should continue to fund PEPFAR because it's apparently extremely effective so it's worth the cost even if it otherwise goes against my desire for a much smaller and less corrupt US government. I don't know why Scott didn't just say that instead of his lame attempt at a dunk.

If you are making this argument for PEPFAR, I think it is self defeating.

All these sorts of arguments are inherently utilitarian at least in part. The problem with this is that there is no evidence that PEPFAR or related programs will solve the problem and end. Any utilitarian argument for a form of welfare must chart a path to its own termination, and frankly, that is the opposite of basically every African aid program. To be frank, there is no end in sight. Africans aren't on the path to manufacture their own mosquito nets, let alone antivirals. You are keeping people alive for the purpose of the next generation of Americans to pay to keep the next generation of them alive. Repeat until the AI destroys us all or decides to dedicate its purposes to keeping them alive, despite their best efforts.

Its not like the PEPFAR enthusiasts are human slavers of any sort and have a plan to take a bunch of Africans and make them carry raw materials to build a space elevator, but without that sort of plan the program does appear to lack much justification.

It is sometimes depicted with this jpeg.

Am I missing some context? Presumably it's that anyone who scores... some way on some metric that results in that chart isn't worth listening to?

That jpeg is actually misleading, the original question listed a bunch of groups from closest to furthest away, from family to foreigners to animals to plants, and to choose the point where you no longer morally care.

The way it was set up, it is literally impossible to say you care about foreigners more than about the close ones, the assumption that literally everyone cares about their family more than about strangers, about human strangers more than animals and so on was just baked into the study.

So if anyone says that study proves democrats care more about animals than people, they are wrong.

That jpeg is actually misleading, the original question listed a bunch of groups from closest to furthest away, from family to foreigners to animals to plants, and to choose the point where you no longer morally care.

Knowyourmeme was wrong about that, though to be fair they're better than regular journalists.

From the original article (link should bring you directly to Methods, Study 3a, procedure):

All participants completed a moral allocation task, in which participants allocated 100 “moral units” among the following 16 categories...

[...]

We also explained to participants that these categories were non-overlapping such that giving to one category (e.g., extended family) would not include an inclusive category (e.g., immediate family).

created the heatmap shown. Afterwards:

In addition, participants also completed a more qualitative measure of the extent of their moral circle by clicking on rungs extending outward and representing the same categories as in the moral allocation task (see Supplementary Note 4).

and supplementary note 4 is shown in the knowyourmeme post.

EDIT: nvm, they just reused the same term to refer to two different things.

Yes thanks for the sources, I didn't know that allocating points was part of the study, but apparently that part was irrelevant to the heatmap.

https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-019-12227-0/MediaObjects/41467_2019_12227_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Please click on a number that depicts the extent of your moral circle. Note that in this scale, the number you select includes the numbers below it as well. So, if you select 10 (all mammals), you are also including numbers 1-9 (up to 'all people on all continents') in your moral circle.

That data was not used to generate the heatmap.

>Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0/figures/5

EDIT: nvm, they just reused the same term to refer to two different things.

In addition, participants also completed a more qualitative measure of the extent of their moral circle by clicking on rungs extending outward and representing the same categories as in the moral allocation task (see Supplementary Note 4). This measure allowed us to create heatmaps to visualize the relative sizes of liberals’ and conservatives’ moral circles.

Does this not say that heatmaps were made out of what they used in supplementary note 4?

I had to dig into their data source to be sure, but it seems you're right. The "allocation" in the caption is talking about the "extent" in the main body, not the "allocation" there. The raw data of the heatmaps is x/y coordinates where they clicked.

The way it was set up, it is literally impossible to say you care about foreigners more than about the close ones

Why? Iirc it was simply a matter of assigning 100 points to different categories.

No, as far as I remember it was not about assigning points, it was about choosing the size of the moral circle, if you look at the graph each circle has the previous smaller circle included within, that imagery is intentional, that is how the participants were meant to interpret it, when they choose animals (big circle) the humans (small circle) is included within.

Yes, you're right.

Finally, we assessed the heatmaps generated by participants’ clicks on the rung they felt best represented the extent of their moral circle.

The size of the moral circle was examined in that study, but was not used to generate the heatmap:

Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0/figures/5

EDIT: nvm, they just reused the same term to refer to two different things.

Well they explicitly say heatmaps were made from the size of the moral circle, and I don't see any other heatmap besides that one.

Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a.

Sounds vague enough that I don't think i have to change my interpretation, even if the wording kinda sound like they're talking about the points allocation.

Every liberal I know would in fact not choose a tree over their family, even if they care about the environment, if your interpretation is right that goes against what you can just see with the naked eye.

Liberals are not these caricatures that "care about rocks more than about their families", please ask any liberal you know if they care less about someone the more closely related they are to them, if they would rather cut a tree or a family member, they are not actually insane.

Sounds vague enough that...

I came down on the other side of that vagueness, but their raw data source is the pixel people clicked on, which is undeniable evidence for your interpretation of that.

Liberals are not these caricatures that "care about rocks more than about their families", please ask any liberal you know if they care less about someone the more closely related they are to them, if they would rather cut a tree or a family member, they are not actually insane.

I have, and that's why I found it plausible. Humans as equal to everything else in the universe is not at all outlandish of a statement. (As to whether they would actually follow that through to its conclusion? Nah, I doubt it. It's all talk.)

Going from memory, it's the amount of empathy the study population (left wingers in that picture) have to a series of groups, starting from "family" in the middle and proceeding through neighbors/countrymen/foreigners/mammals/other animals/bacteria at the edges.

EDIT: found it. The most common highest choice outer limit among liberals looks like "all animals in the universe, including alien lifeforms" while it's "all of your friends (including distant ones)" for conservatives.

White progressives have a pro-outgroup bias. That means they like black people more than other white people, foreigners more than countrymen, etc... They are the only group known to have these biases.

I think the image is trying to say something like this: Why should I listen to you when you hate yourself? You think white people are bad. Shouldn't I just go listen to a black person instead?

For example, recently Michael Moore (a fat, stupid, white male) complained that the problem with America is that there are too many fat, stupid, white men in charge. This seems like the perfect time to reply with the jpg.

The other problem with that hypo (which is the original problem with the Singer hypo) is that it is very rare to encounter a drowning child (ie the problem is discrete and solvable) whereas the poor will always be with us (ie the problem is unbounded). Applying the logic of the first to the second is wrong headed.

But if the US cancels PEPFAR, then other countries, NGOs, and citizens can and will fill in the gap. This is not something that only the US can do. In fact, governments are often uniquely bad at delivering aid.

This is precisely what the US should do.

Trump should simply declare that PEPFAR etc are worthy initiatives but US national interests are at the moment constrained but that billionaires and ordinary citizens who have prospered handsomely from business in the free world and can bear it should contribute to such initiatives instead of funding left-wing activism or people gluing themselves to roads.

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