EDIT: I made this comment assuming the comment I’m replying to is making a critique of longtermism but no longer convinced this is the correct reading 😅 here’s the response anyway:
Well it’s not so much that longtermists ignore such suffering, it’s that anyone who is choosing a priority (so any EA, regardless of their stance on longtermism) in our current broken system will end up ignoring (or at least not working on alleviating) many problems.
For example the problem of adults with cancer in the US is undoubtedly tragic but is well understood and reasonably well funded by the government and charitable organizations, I would argue it fails the ‘neglectedness’ part of the traditional EA neglectedness, tractability, importance system. Another example, people trapped in North Korea, I think would fail on tractability, given the lack of progress over the decades. I haven’t thought about those two particularly deeply and could be totally wrong but this is just the traditional EA framework for prioritizing among different problems, even if those problems are heartbreaking to have to set aside.
EDIT: I made this comment assuming the comment I’m replying to is making a critique of longtermism but no longer convinced this is the correct reading 😅 here’s the response anyway:
Well it’s not so much that longtermists ignore such suffering, it’s that anyone who is choosing a priority (so any EA, regardless of their stance on longtermism) in our current broken system will end up ignoring (or at least not working on alleviating) many problems.
For example the problem of adults with cancer in the US is undoubtedly tragic but is well understood and reasonably well funded by the government and charitable organizations, I would argue it fails the ‘neglectedness’ part of the traditional EA neglectedness, tractability, importance system. Another example, people trapped in North Korea, I think would fail on tractability, given the lack of progress over the decades. I haven’t thought about those two particularly deeply and could be totally wrong but this is just the traditional EA framework for prioritizing among different problems, even if those problems are heartbreaking to have to set aside.