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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35659 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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I didn't do it because it maximized efficiency. I did it because it made a human being happy

Utilitarians literally want to maximize efficiency of making people happy, though. The greatest happiness of the greatest number! And malaria nets and givedirectly are actually "helping people" instead of praying for them after they die of crack, etc. Not watching your children die of malaria presumably creates much more happiness than candy. So what specifically does the sneer about efficiency mean here?

You will never be satisfied that THE AGENCY TASKED WITH PROBLEM SOLVING will solve the problem

okay, well being 'satisfied' clearly isn't the issue, it's the actual people who are dying, right? Let's say all of the EA people were forced to do a bunch of LSD and MDMA and 'satisfied' themselves, and then donated $300/month to homeless people, and then a hundred thousand people who would've been alive died of malaria.

How on earth does giving the guy candy actually accomplish anything? Would giving him more meth? The meth would certainly make him - for the moment - much happier than the candy.

His birthright is the stars, the same as yours is

But he probably doesn't have the physical capability to go to the stars, or contribute to a way there. So what does this mean? "Everyone deserves everything, nobody deserves anything" is a zen koan, a way to notice that "deserve" doesn't necessarily mean anything by itself, not to declare doing meaningless symbolic acts is the greatest good.

So what specifically does the sneer about efficiency mean here?

Damnit Spock, I'm a doctor, not a statistician!

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