I am not receptive to browbeating. I suspect most people in the world are not, either. I don’t know what you intend to accomplish by telling people that every single one of their valued life choices is morally equivalent to letting a child die.
If your answer is “I think people will be receptive to this”, I have completely different intuitions. If your answer is “I want to highlight true and important arguments even if nobody is receptive to them”, you’re welcome to do that, but that has basically no impact on the audience of this forum.
The drowning child motivated a lot of people to be more thoughtful about helping people far away from them. But the EA project has evolved much further beyond that. We have institutions to manage, careers to create, money to spend, regulatory agendas to advance, causes to explore. I think it’s time to retire the drowning child, and send it the way of the paperclip maximizer.
I’m not clear on whether you think the drowning child argument is browbeating by nature, or whether you think that just this particular presentation of it is browbeating. (Your remark about retiring the drowning child implies the former, but another of your comments elsewhere implies that you can use the drowning child argument without browbeating people with it?)
Anyway, I don’t think it’s time to retire the argument, I still feel like I hear a lot of people cite it as insightful for them.
Maybe it was an exaggeration to say it should be retired. It was an important source of insight for me as well. But I think it is used in a browbeating way very often, and this post is a strong example of that. I think the drowning child argument is best used as a way to provoke people to introspect about the inconsistency in their values, not to tell them how immoral all of their actions are.
For me it was interesting what others wrote, because we have very different approaches to it.
And personally I feel, it’s good to rethink such terms and dogmata from time to time , even you already have.
Often we need to discuss them often until a new understanding or even a way of thinking about things takes over.
I’m kinda new to EA and this forum, maybe for some of you others it’s maybe kind of boring, when one has had these thoughts or discussions already years ago, of course they are.
But I feel it’s a very divers community in many ways like are, schooling, social enviroment. So its maybe useful to get everyone to a point where more elabourate discussions and thoughts can go on....
In short, never underestimate getting the basics straight...over and over again for new arrivals.
My understanding of this (blog) post is a restating of the drowning child thought experiment in OP’s voice, with their confident personal writing style. I’m not certain about their intentions behind the article.
In terms using the drowning child argument in general, particularly when explaining what is EA to people who have never heard it before, I do still think it’s useful; people understand the general meaning behind it even when only half-explained in 45 seconds by non-philsophers.
That’s fair, if it’s more of an expository exercise for OP’s own sake, I can respect that. But
people understand the general meaning behind it even when only half-explained in 45 seconds by non-philsophers.
is exactly why I’m not a fan of using it to browbeat people. It is simple and makes its point clear without you needing to tell people how immoral they are.
I am not receptive to browbeating. I suspect most people in the world are not, either. I don’t know what you intend to accomplish by telling people that every single one of their valued life choices is morally equivalent to letting a child die.
If your answer is “I think people will be receptive to this”, I have completely different intuitions. If your answer is “I want to highlight true and important arguments even if nobody is receptive to them”, you’re welcome to do that, but that has basically no impact on the audience of this forum.
The drowning child motivated a lot of people to be more thoughtful about helping people far away from them. But the EA project has evolved much further beyond that. We have institutions to manage, careers to create, money to spend, regulatory agendas to advance, causes to explore. I think it’s time to retire the drowning child, and send it the way of the paperclip maximizer.
I’m not clear on whether you think the drowning child argument is browbeating by nature, or whether you think that just this particular presentation of it is browbeating. (Your remark about retiring the drowning child implies the former, but another of your comments elsewhere implies that you can use the drowning child argument without browbeating people with it?)
Anyway, I don’t think it’s time to retire the argument, I still feel like I hear a lot of people cite it as insightful for them.
Maybe it was an exaggeration to say it should be retired. It was an important source of insight for me as well. But I think it is used in a browbeating way very often, and this post is a strong example of that. I think the drowning child argument is best used as a way to provoke people to introspect about the inconsistency in their values, not to tell them how immoral all of their actions are.
Even if most aren’t receptive to the argument, the argument may still be correct. In which case its still valuable to argue for and write about.
For me it was interesting what others wrote, because we have very different approaches to it. And personally I feel, it’s good to rethink such terms and dogmata from time to time , even you already have.
Often we need to discuss them often until a new understanding or even a way of thinking about things takes over.
I’m kinda new to EA and this forum, maybe for some of you others it’s maybe kind of boring, when one has had these thoughts or discussions already years ago, of course they are.
But I feel it’s a very divers community in many ways like are, schooling, social enviroment. So its maybe useful to get everyone to a point where more elabourate discussions and thoughts can go on....
In short, never underestimate getting the basics straight...over and over again for new arrivals.
My understanding of this (blog) post is a restating of the drowning child thought experiment in OP’s voice, with their confident personal writing style. I’m not certain about their intentions behind the article.
In terms using the drowning child argument in general, particularly when explaining what is EA to people who have never heard it before, I do still think it’s useful; people understand the general meaning behind it even when only half-explained in 45 seconds by non-philsophers.
That’s fair, if it’s more of an expository exercise for OP’s own sake, I can respect that. But
is exactly why I’m not a fan of using it to browbeat people. It is simple and makes its point clear without you needing to tell people how immoral they are.