To be honest, the text of this article is extraordinarily long and hard to comprehend. Is there like a simplified version of this text that is in simpler English and is much shorter?
dstudioscode
Karma: −53
Hi, in the city I am presiding there are a lot of homeless people.
A lot of these people are near grocery stores. Considering meat is a high protein source, like if you buy turkey slices, I feel like that lasts (compared to buying something like tofu). So I was wondering whether its okay to buy meat to give it to a homeless person. This forum seems to think veganism is highly impactful so I don’t know.Or perhaps, rather than donating meat, I could donate money to them? I don’t know if that is good either because there isn’t really much of a big difference if a homeless person buys meat vs I buy the meat for them.
Furthermore, there are some instances where some argue that homeless people would spend the money on drugs and alcohol. But when I’m not in a position to give food (because I don’t have it with me currently), I donate like a dollar. Would this be considered good or bad?
But boycotts where you are trying to make a policy change require mass organization then?
So I shouldn’t care too much about opening strangers water bottles and opening the cap or whatever and emptying its contents, kind of like what the article says. Interesting.
Could the same logic be applied elsewhere?
E.g. boycotting Nestle results in reduced money for Nestle which causes Nestle to exploit people in Africa less?
Idk, red cross says check with a physician beforehand. Furthermore, the blood donation center I am currently going to frequently asks if I am taking those supplements before I donate. It seems like there must be something external that is relevant about those supplements—its not just another source of iron.
How is veganism effective then? Like blood/platelet/plasma donation is ineffective because there are already lots of blood donations out there, but somehow veganism if effective despite there being plenty of meat eaters out there?
Furthermore, earlier on regarding saving hospitals money, I have been thinking if that really saves any lives in a very indirect manner. For context, I live in the US in a for-profit healthcare system. Should I care about saving hospitals money? Who receives the benefit in this scenario? Maybe hospital has more money to save more people, or maybe the admins in charge gets a bigger payraise...
Then why does the Texas Water Quality Association say its a problem? Furthermore, technically its not removed from the water cycle permanently—but its removed for a really long time. Overall, small removals will snowball into large removals given infinite time...
Edit: Furthermore, this makes it sound like wasting water isn’t that big of a problem. Is it the case that conserving water is effectively useless?
To be honest for some reason, there seems to be some wariness regarding iron supplementation (I am supposed to see a physician before doing this). I currently am not able to do that. Its just lots of people here seem to view blood/platelet/plasma donation as not effective altruism, but view veganism as effective altruism. So I was expecting responses to be more biased towards veganism than blood/platlet/plasma donation...
I don’t get compensated at all for blood donation/plasma donation/platelet donation...
Why is this getting downvoted?
I guess then I’ll continue to donate then but take it less seriously. Out of curiosity though, which position do you think is more important—veganism or blood/platelet/plasma donation? I have recently been not having enough iron to donate, and it really seems that the only way to solve this is to start eating meat. What would you recommend?
Edit: For context, I heard in some countries like India, there do seem to be genuine blood/platelet/plasma shortages where people can’t get blood when they need it. I heard this from word of mouth, not from a source.
Yeah, I know it is not really related to EA but I need to talk with consequentialist like members. Its interesting, because I thought it would be my moral obligation to report it—less so to save some person’s life more so to reduce funding for drug cartels. But it seems majority of the comments are telling me to not get involved—which is just fine with me because I would feel awkward getting involved
Elaborate on 3)
Well in this context, you pretty much said its guaranteed that another person would have saved such person’s life. I don’t really care about “building character” and whatnot considering this is about consequentialism, not about displaying virtue. Regarding saving money for hospital, you are saying that donating blood leads to hospitals to not have to use extraneous measures (that are expensive) to get blood, right?
Technically the live-saving surgery part was told by the person who drew my blood.
What’s the point of donating blood if I am not saving lives though?
Does that mean there is no value in blood/platelet donation? Does it matter if I do not donate?
Also, it is said that life-saving surgeries have been postponed due to lack of blood/platelets. I guess it is hard to say if the postponement results in death.Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure the shelf-life of blood/platelets is even long enough for there to be an importation from another country (ig it depends on the country).
And also, why do blood donation groups then incentivize blood donation quite excessively, if its not that big of a problem right now?
Yeah, stopping one individual customer is indeed negligible towards cartels. However, I am still confused about whether I should get involved for the own person’s good or not. Cocaine is very addictive, but being in prison for a felony can be pretty bad too (which is why some people argue for lenient laws towards drug users).
Furthermore, you bring up a good point that I don’t know how to report it. I don’t even know the person’s name and I would feel awkward asking for said person’s name from a friend that will ask another friend for the name.On one hand, since it is not my business, I am biased to remain uninvolved—but I’m not sure if that is the correct utilitarian response. If I can stop a coke addiction, I can effectively save a life (without donating like 5000 dollars to a charity).
Edit:
Also coke is pretty bad for the environment as well.
There also lies the issue of whether u can blame consumers of unethical companies. Companies like Nestle have done horrible terrible stuff, and some people eat factory-farmed meat. Yet, I don’t do anything to stop said consumers (though there is nothing I can do too).
Why wouldn’t it be more effective? If there is a shortage, and blood is needed, wouldn’t donating once save a life? Apparently, one blood donation can like affect like 3 people. If there is a shortage, lives are being saved. This is much easier—and cheaper—than paying 5000 bucks to Give Directly.
So is it basically saying that many people follow different types of utilitarianism (I’m assuming this means the “ambitious moralities”), but judging which one is better is quite neglible since all the types usually share important moral similarities (I’m assuming what this means “minimal morality”)?