I’d expect the internet to make many minority causes and interests more successful by letting their rare supporters get together, and I think it has had this effect. However that doesn’t seem to explain why they are minority causes to begin with.
Do you mean that before computer programming the philosophically minded just didn’t have lucrative professions?
Have we recently passed some threshold in high quality evidence for what works in aid? I’d expect in future we think of 2014 level of evidence as low, and still say we only recently got good evidence.
Before the internet, it probably didn’t make sense to organise around such a high level of abstraction away from concrete goals. Before the modern economy it probably didn’t make that much sense to invest so much time into thinking about alternatives in this way, and some utilitarians seem to have done so anyway.
Interesting suggestions.
I’d expect the internet to make many minority causes and interests more successful by letting their rare supporters get together, and I think it has had this effect. However that doesn’t seem to explain why they are minority causes to begin with.
Do you mean that before computer programming the philosophically minded just didn’t have lucrative professions?
Have we recently passed some threshold in high quality evidence for what works in aid? I’d expect in future we think of 2014 level of evidence as low, and still say we only recently got good evidence.
Before the internet, it probably didn’t make sense to organise around such a high level of abstraction away from concrete goals. Before the modern economy it probably didn’t make that much sense to invest so much time into thinking about alternatives in this way, and some utilitarians seem to have done so anyway.