I suspect that a lot of protesters would be very angry we’re even raising these kinds of issues, but...
If we’re being consequentialist about this, then the impact of the protests is not the difference between fixing these injustices, and the status quo continuing forever. It’s the difference between a chance of fixing these injustices now, and a chance of fixing them next time a protest-worthy incident comes around.
Sadly, opportunities for these kinds of protests seem to come around fairly regularly in the US. So I expect these protests are probably only reducing future injustices by a few years in expectation. Add to that the decent chance that the protests don’t achieve very much[1], and it might be even less.
Normally, of course, it would be well worth it. But if it’s true that mass protests during a pandemic will cause many thousands of deaths, then the above reasoning becomes pretty important.
Regardless of where a consequentialist analysis would come down, it is a tragedy that people feel they need to choose between missing an opportunity to fix a horrible system of state violence, and not spreading a dangerous pandemic.
In particular, it’s important to ask how a pandemic affects the chances of success. If it decreases them (say, because people are unusually unsympathetic to people seen as irresponsibly crowding together) then the expected value of these protests (relative to waiting) falls. If it increases them (say, because politicians and public authorities are unusually keen to resolve the crisis and get people off the streets) then that would be a counterargument to my claims here.
A couple more weak arguments pointing towards protesting now:
if protest success depends on number of people, the fact that many people are currently out of work may make current protests more likely to succeed.
if protests are about demonstrating strength of feeling, then saying (with one’s actions) ‘I care enough about this to risk a deadly disease’ arguably does that pretty effectively.
There’s also the question of whether protesting meaningfully affects the election, if so the effect size of that could dwarf everything else, but I don’t have any idea which way it cuts and can see good arguments in both directions.
Thanks, this is exactly the kind of response I’d like to see.
I agree that the first point points in a pro-protesting direction. The second might also but I am uneasy about it (for a young person, most of the impact of their getting sick is infecting others, so the actual message is “I care enough about this to risk giving others a deadly disease”, which is somewhat less attractive). I agree that the third could go either way.
(Notably, the third point makes rioting an even more terrible idea than I already thought it was.)
Sure, I didn’t think you were saying that the protests would be a panacea. My main point was less about probability/degree of success and more about counterfactual impact.
I suspect that a lot of protesters would be very angry we’re even raising these kinds of issues, but...
If we’re being consequentialist about this, then the impact of the protests is not the difference between fixing these injustices, and the status quo continuing forever. It’s the difference between a chance of fixing these injustices now, and a chance of fixing them next time a protest-worthy incident comes around.
Sadly, opportunities for these kinds of protests seem to come around fairly regularly in the US. So I expect these protests are probably only reducing future injustices by a few years in expectation. Add to that the decent chance that the protests don’t achieve very much[1], and it might be even less.
Normally, of course, it would be well worth it. But if it’s true that mass protests during a pandemic will cause many thousands of deaths, then the above reasoning becomes pretty important.
This is certainly true.
In particular, it’s important to ask how a pandemic affects the chances of success. If it decreases them (say, because people are unusually unsympathetic to people seen as irresponsibly crowding together) then the expected value of these protests (relative to waiting) falls. If it increases them (say, because politicians and public authorities are unusually keen to resolve the crisis and get people off the streets) then that would be a counterargument to my claims here.
A couple more weak arguments pointing towards protesting now:
if protest success depends on number of people, the fact that many people are currently out of work may make current protests more likely to succeed.
if protests are about demonstrating strength of feeling, then saying (with one’s actions) ‘I care enough about this to risk a deadly disease’ arguably does that pretty effectively.
There’s also the question of whether protesting meaningfully affects the election, if so the effect size of that could dwarf everything else, but I don’t have any idea which way it cuts and can see good arguments in both directions.
Thanks, this is exactly the kind of response I’d like to see.
I agree that the first point points in a pro-protesting direction. The second might also but I am uneasy about it (for a young person, most of the impact of their getting sick is infecting others, so the actual message is “I care enough about this to risk giving others a deadly disease”, which is somewhat less attractive). I agree that the third could go either way.
(Notably, the third point makes rioting an even more terrible idea than I already thought it was.)
I didn’t mean to imply that the protests would fix the whole problem, obviously they won’t.
As you say you’d need to multiply through by a distribution for ‘likelihood of success’ and ‘how much of the problems solved’.
Sure, I didn’t think you were saying that the protests would be a panacea. My main point was less about probability/degree of success and more about counterfactual impact.