| A few hot takes: - I feel some analogous thinking with computational complexity. An action may have broad repercussions, but in big O thinking, as we approach infinity, only those factors with the most significant impact matter. Considering infinities is a useful lens when trying to reduce complexity to the most significant factors. - That kind of analysis is typically only useful if you have the entire algorithm and all its variables mapped out. A big-O approach to the travelling salesman problem wouldn't be accurate if you didn't consider the travelling part. You'd say hey, only 1 destination is added at a time, so the impact of each new destination is linear, which is wildly incorrect. - As long as a subject matter is subjective and people get to decide which variables belong and which can be ignored, and what impact a variable may have, the analysis will be incorrect, most likely wildly incorrect. Is there a universal method for deciding which factors are important? "Should we bomb our neighbours and steal their chocolate, or buy their chocolate instead of making our own? Well, our main export is chocolate, so they are taking bread off our citizens tables. Infinite bombs = infinite bread." Obviously a few factors are missing - but which factors? Obviously there's limits to the technique but I think it's an interesting lens to view ethical concerns through, but I don't see how (would like to better understand if?) it provides any insight into universal ethics or if there is such a thing because at the core of it all is a person who gets to decide what they think is and isn't important to factor into the calculation. Or maybe that's the point I missed. Interesting in any case. |