Cool investigation, Nick! Although Iamconfused about whether saving lives is beneficial/​harmful, I liked how you described your own journey from being surprised about a topic to eventually understanding it, everything in a concise nice-to-read way!
Adding a new layer to your confusion: since most of the lives in question are probably newborns (as most of the mortality is captured by neonatal disorders), and since the time lag between one’s specific donation and its corresponding effects is likely more than 9 months, this means that one’s donation will probably impact the identity of the affected kids. If for some reason (e.g., non-identity problem) one believes that helping existing people is more important than helping future people, then this counts against donating to clean water projects. (I totally disagree with this, ofc)
Interestingly, that point also applies to the effects on animals! Most of the animals who would suffer due to preventing the death of a newborn do not yet exist at the time the newborn was saved. Like you, I totally disagree with this kind of reasoning. Suffering is bad even if the action which led to it happened before the suffering being came into existence.
Cool investigation, Nick! Although I am confused about whether saving lives is beneficial/​harmful, I liked how you described your own journey from being surprised about a topic to eventually understanding it, everything in a concise nice-to-read way!
Adding a new layer to your confusion: since most of the lives in question are probably newborns (as most of the mortality is captured by neonatal disorders), and since the time lag between one’s specific donation and its corresponding effects is likely more than 9 months, this means that one’s donation will probably impact the identity of the affected kids. If for some reason (e.g., non-identity problem) one believes that helping existing people is more important than helping future people, then this counts against donating to clean water projects.
(I totally disagree with this, ofc)
Hi Ramiro,
Interestingly, that point also applies to the effects on animals! Most of the animals who would suffer due to preventing the death of a newborn do not yet exist at the time the newborn was saved. Like you, I totally disagree with this kind of reasoning. Suffering is bad even if the action which led to it happened before the suffering being came into existence.
Ha thanks man, appreciate it.
I sure hope your are wrong about the saving lives thing, otherwise my life is likely well on the net negative end ;).
Looking forward to seeing more of your interesting posts!