site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

12
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If it cost you a mere penny to save their life, would you do it?

I don't think the question reflects how the world actually works. If it costs a penny, I would posit that the United States government has spent no shortage of pennies, many of them extracted from my pocket, and that this should be a solved problem. If it costs a penny and the United States government has failed to allocate that sliver of copper, I would think that the many pennies Bill Gates allocates should be sufficient to solve the problem. If it is a mere penny that is needed (or any other trivial sum), then my penny doesn't need to be the marginal penny spent. That I'm being asked for a penny to end this suffering strongly suggests to me that some factor other than the necessary pennies are what's actually causing the suffering, which makes me very suspicious of why someone is asking for my penny.

Well in this case the real price is ~10k, and the US government reasonably decides that the marginal utility of spending more on foreign aid to save more lives isn't worth it at that point. But folks at EA disagree; they will donate at that level of price to lives saved. My point was more that the OP seemed to call EA "evil" but I expect that it's not really such a deep fundamental difference of values as it is his value of foreign lives is significantly lower but not 0. If it was literally 0 he would not spend even a penny to save a foreigner, but I expect that's not true.

Doesn’t that run afoul of the categorical imperative? If everyone follows your reasoning, and decides that it won’t be their penny that saves a life, we’d expect to see the life continue to go unsaved. This applies to the government, too. How can we tell whether the unsaved life is bait for a trap or a genuine failure to coordinate?

Some charitable rhetoric like the Giving What We Can pledge is specifically trying to force a more stable equilibrium.

Yes, it would, but my point is less "someone else can do it" and more "I believe other someones have already been explicitly funded to do this and the marginal penny flatly isn't the problem". If Bill Gates' coalition of billionaires can't coordinate sufficiently to solve the problem, I think the problem will not be solved by me electing to give a few more of my dollars. That these intractable problems are halfway around the world globe where I can't even begin to meaningfully evaluate them furthers my belief that I'd be better served by lighting the money on fire and enjoying a few moments of warmth. Basically, when someone tells me that I can save a life with a penny, I think they are either incorrect or grifting.

To put some specific numbers on it since the above is a claim that just handwaves away the idea that there are cheaply saved lives, an insecticide bed net apparently costs $2-3 for a family-sized nets. These apparently last 3-4 years, I would assume that it's not literally every African that needs one, and they apparently are large enough for multiple people. So, let's go ahead and call the nets $1 per year and let's say we need a billion of them - how in the world could it be that the Bill Gates team, or Sam Bankman, or USAID can't figure out the $1 billion per year without me chipping in (more than I already do via federal tax dollars)?

If Peter Singer's drowning child ever appears in real life, I will gladly wade into the pond and destroy my nicest suit to save them, but I think applying the same thinking to less legible child-saving is just a rhetorical trick, disconnected from reality.