Large-scale? Not compared to other things. Poverty is much more important, animal welfare is much more important, defeating aging is much more important… it’s so easy to think of things which are much more important that I’m not going to bother extending the list.
Tractable? Not compared to other things. It’s much easier to convince people that aging is bad and research on how to stop it should be funded, than to convince people that having to go to the bathroom is bad and research on how to stop it should be funded. Also scientifically there might be less hope for a solution in the short run; the waste our bodies produce has to leave somehow, and there may not be a significantly more elegant way to do it. In the long run with nanobot or upload bodies this problem can be solved, but by far the most effective ways for us to achieve this is to simply work on AI alignment and the like.
Thank you for your comment. I agree that poverty, animal welfare and aging are more intense forms of suffering and they should definetely addressed by the EA community and in fact they already are (aging maybe not as much as the others). When I wrote that the bladder is a large-scale problem, I literally meant scale in a narrow sense: every of all 7.8 billion has to pee say 7 times a day. That means that we, as a species, have to undergo this annoying thing almost 20 trillion times a year. That is why is think that, even multiplying with the low intensity, you get easily to the same scales as with poverty and aging.
With respect to scientific aspect of tractability, I do not actually think an operation is a plausible way to achieve the goal. That is merely an element of the fable, to make it more dramatic. However, I think that a solution might be possible with advances in catheter technology. Catheters now still are horrible, but they already do the job. I am confident that with increasing demand, new breakthroughs will happen quickly. On the cultural side, I agree that it does not seem plausible that major parts of the society will engage in a discussion on bladder removal soon, but so many conventions and taboos have been toppled in the past hundred years, that it is very much probable that it will happen. Again, it will help that everybody is affected directly multiple times a day, which is not true for the other problems you mention.
I agree that peeing etc. happens a lot and that a large quantity of minor suffering can sometimes be more important than a smaller quantity of intense suffering. However I think that in this case the things I mentioned—poverty, aging, etc. -- are overall much more important. Consider: What would happen if we polled people and asked them “What if you had the choice between two pills, one of which would keep you young and healthy until you died by some non-natural cause, and another of which would magically eliminate your pee and poop so you never had to go to the bathroom. Which would you choose?” I’d bet the vast majority of people would choose the first pill if they chose any pill at all. Now imagine asking similar questions about poverty… I’m pretty sure people would rather pee and poop than be poor. Much rather. Similarly, consider asking people to choose between giving the no-pee-or-poop-pills to 100 people, or helping 1 person to stay healthy for just a mere 10 more years. I’m pretty sure almost everyone would say the morally correct choice is the second one. All this to say, I feel pretty confident in my judgment that eliminating poverty, aging, etc. is way more important than eliminating pee & poop etc.
I’m glad to hear you talk about catheters—they are indeed much more tractable. However, my understanding is that people who use them are usually happy to stop using them; this suggests that they are actually less comfortable, more degrading, etc. than our usual bodily functions!
I totally buy that it’s possible for society to change its norms around peeing pooping etc. and decide that we should eliminate it. Like you said, society changes its opinions on things like this every century or so. However, the question is how much control we have over society’s opinions on this. And while I think we do have some (small) amount of influence, I think we’d better use that influence to change society’s opinions about other things, like the moral status of farmed animals, or the importance of existential risk reduction. (Because again, those things are more important. And for that matter they are more tractable too; it’s easier to change people’s minds about them, I think.)
Also I would like to point out that although catheters are still bad, they are much better that what we used to have, which proves improvements possible and this is more important to tractability than today’s dire situation.
I checked the numbers thinking that a 1 to 100 ratio in your example should be much larger, that actually the trade-off should be more like 1 to 10000. Turns out that is not the case. If 9% of the world’s population is over 65 (I assume you wanted to compare a person’s possible impact on aging with their possible impact on the bladder), the ratio is more like 1 to 11. So I have to retract my statement that peeing is on the same scale as aging and poverty. That being said, I still think this is a very important issue and while the most effective people should work on something else, someone whose applications to jobs in other fields got rejected still just consider improving catheter technology as a way to do a tremendous amount of good. The same holds true for advocacy. While catheters are maybe not something Peter Singer should write books about, I for my part am very happy to raise awareness of this topic. And that is more tractable than you seem to think. While people might think fighting poverty is more important, they do not act according to their believes, see the drowning-child thought experiment. While people would prefer having to pee and poop to poverty, that is not a choice most people in rich countries face.
Large-scale? Not compared to other things. Poverty is much more important, animal welfare is much more important, defeating aging is much more important… it’s so easy to think of things which are much more important that I’m not going to bother extending the list.
Tractable? Not compared to other things. It’s much easier to convince people that aging is bad and research on how to stop it should be funded, than to convince people that having to go to the bathroom is bad and research on how to stop it should be funded. Also scientifically there might be less hope for a solution in the short run; the waste our bodies produce has to leave somehow, and there may not be a significantly more elegant way to do it. In the long run with nanobot or upload bodies this problem can be solved, but by far the most effective ways for us to achieve this is to simply work on AI alignment and the like.
Neglected? Sure.
Thank you for your comment. I agree that poverty, animal welfare and aging are more intense forms of suffering and they should definetely addressed by the EA community and in fact they already are (aging maybe not as much as the others). When I wrote that the bladder is a large-scale problem, I literally meant scale in a narrow sense: every of all 7.8 billion has to pee say 7 times a day. That means that we, as a species, have to undergo this annoying thing almost 20 trillion times a year. That is why is think that, even multiplying with the low intensity, you get easily to the same scales as with poverty and aging.
With respect to scientific aspect of tractability, I do not actually think an operation is a plausible way to achieve the goal. That is merely an element of the fable, to make it more dramatic. However, I think that a solution might be possible with advances in catheter technology. Catheters now still are horrible, but they already do the job. I am confident that with increasing demand, new breakthroughs will happen quickly. On the cultural side, I agree that it does not seem plausible that major parts of the society will engage in a discussion on bladder removal soon, but so many conventions and taboos have been toppled in the past hundred years, that it is very much probable that it will happen. Again, it will help that everybody is affected directly multiple times a day, which is not true for the other problems you mention.
I agree that peeing etc. happens a lot and that a large quantity of minor suffering can sometimes be more important than a smaller quantity of intense suffering. However I think that in this case the things I mentioned—poverty, aging, etc. -- are overall much more important. Consider: What would happen if we polled people and asked them “What if you had the choice between two pills, one of which would keep you young and healthy until you died by some non-natural cause, and another of which would magically eliminate your pee and poop so you never had to go to the bathroom. Which would you choose?” I’d bet the vast majority of people would choose the first pill if they chose any pill at all. Now imagine asking similar questions about poverty… I’m pretty sure people would rather pee and poop than be poor. Much rather. Similarly, consider asking people to choose between giving the no-pee-or-poop-pills to 100 people, or helping 1 person to stay healthy for just a mere 10 more years. I’m pretty sure almost everyone would say the morally correct choice is the second one. All this to say, I feel pretty confident in my judgment that eliminating poverty, aging, etc. is way more important than eliminating pee & poop etc.
I’m glad to hear you talk about catheters—they are indeed much more tractable. However, my understanding is that people who use them are usually happy to stop using them; this suggests that they are actually less comfortable, more degrading, etc. than our usual bodily functions!
I totally buy that it’s possible for society to change its norms around peeing pooping etc. and decide that we should eliminate it. Like you said, society changes its opinions on things like this every century or so. However, the question is how much control we have over society’s opinions on this. And while I think we do have some (small) amount of influence, I think we’d better use that influence to change society’s opinions about other things, like the moral status of farmed animals, or the importance of existential risk reduction. (Because again, those things are more important. And for that matter they are more tractable too; it’s easier to change people’s minds about them, I think.)
Also I would like to point out that although catheters are still bad, they are much better that what we used to have, which proves improvements possible and this is more important to tractability than today’s dire situation.
I checked the numbers thinking that a 1 to 100 ratio in your example should be much larger, that actually the trade-off should be more like 1 to 10000. Turns out that is not the case. If 9% of the world’s population is over 65 (I assume you wanted to compare a person’s possible impact on aging with their possible impact on the bladder), the ratio is more like 1 to 11. So I have to retract my statement that peeing is on the same scale as aging and poverty. That being said, I still think this is a very important issue and while the most effective people should work on something else, someone whose applications to jobs in other fields got rejected still just consider improving catheter technology as a way to do a tremendous amount of good. The same holds true for advocacy. While catheters are maybe not something Peter Singer should write books about, I for my part am very happy to raise awareness of this topic. And that is more tractable than you seem to think. While people might think fighting poverty is more important, they do not act according to their believes, see the drowning-child thought experiment. While people would prefer having to pee and poop to poverty, that is not a choice most people in rich countries face.