[renewiltord]

Ah, since $1000 will save a life, and you believe that giving $1000 will not make a significant difference, then one must logically conclude that it is untrue that saving a life is making a significant difference. From there, it does not take very much to conclude that human lives are not significant to you either.

[Dylan16807]

Or you could opt not to be super pedantic just to score points against me.

When it comes to ridding the world of severe poverty, donating enough to help one person is not _________. If you object to the term "significant", then go ahead and pick a better term.

[renewiltord]

I don't object to the term. I think any thing that fills in the gap that implies value will lead to the same conclusion. I don't think that's surprising since the evidence is really strong in favour of that conclusion: arbitrary human life has very little value. It is certainly true that almost all individuals behave in a manner consistent with this being true, at least.

I personally believe it is nearer zero, but it is clearly less valuable than whatever value most individuals ascribe to ten hundred dollar bills.

[Dylan16807]

The value depends on context. The punishment for hurting someone is much higher than the amount it takes to help someone. And spending a thousand dollars to help an anonymous person, who is in a sea of people not getting help, and will fall back into that sea soon enough, feels like tossing it into a black hole when the donation is all by itself. But if there's enough donations together, they feel more meaningful.

You're measuring value in just about the weakest possible context.

People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem.

[chordalkeyboard]

> People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem.

This sounds a lot like saying its not worth it to help one person.

[buran77]

More like "there is so much less value in spending money for painkillers for you today when it could be spent for a cure for everybody forever". If a dentist never pulled out a tooth and just charged for morphine now and again you'd be pissed instead of being relieved that they made you feel well just for one day. Not only do you still suffer (but with timeouts), you also payed more long term.

If everyone just takes turns pushing a boulder up a mountain eventually you'll put in more effort than if everyone pushes at once, and have almost none of the results. Sometimes being even 99% there is not enough.

[chordalkeyboard]

> More like "there is so much less value in spending money for painkillers for you today when it could be spent for a cure for everybody forever".

exactly! my suffering as an individual is simply not significant enough to motivate you.

> If a dentist never pulled out a tooth and just charged for morphine now and again you'd be pissed instead of being relieved that they made you feel well just for one day. Not only do you still suffer (but with timeouts), you also payed more long term.

I'd be especially pissed if he refused to pull my tooth on the grounds that other people would still suffer from toothaches.

> If everyone just takes turns pushing a boulder up a mountain eventually you'll put in more effort than if everyone pushes at once, and have almost none of the results. Sometimes being even 99% there is not enough.

If few people are willing to pay the cost of an incremental solution then how are we proposing to convince them that the much greater cost of a large scale solution is worth it?

[renewiltord]

Defensible if spending is appropriately directed or directed to savings/investments with that intended goal, but getting the Forester Touring vs the Forester Premium? That's 3 kids and it's hard to make the case that this argument applies.

[winston_smith]

I too have seen the Facebook chain letter about how we could end world poverty for only $XX billion. But yes, let's definitely not fund malaria relief in the meantime.