Would you save 10 million people?

[george w]

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I'm not sure what you mean by this. Is this a personal question or a question about what the meaning of life is for everyone?

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i mean that going out for drinks with friends is probably more benificial to humanity than sitting at home in order to save the money. but it depends of course.

[daryn]

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Daryn,

If the choice is presented to you, your life or X others lifes, how are you not taking others lifes when you chose to live? Because you are not doing the actual killing?

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yeah.


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Also, I dont doubt that you dont think the world would be worse off without you...

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yeah, of course i don't. i mean, i do no harm, i treat everyone with respect, i have (hopefully) impacted many others in a positive way.

[HP]

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ok I shouldn't have assumed you held the utiliterian belief, but my point was, if one does hold this belief, they should be working their balls of their whole life and give everything they can to charity

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do you agree with this Scotty? I'm wondering why you are only arguing with Daryn and not his opposition also

[xorbie]

all,

what if instead of 10 million it was 10,000. how about just 10?

do you see how arguing qualitatively here doesn't work, and how arguing quantitatively defeats the point of your argument (those arguing "yes, yes" is morally superior, that is). there is no "right" choice here.

i wouldn't, fwiw.

[HP]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Is this a personal question or a question about what the meaning of life is for everyone?

[/ QUOTE ]

i mean that going out for drinks with friends is probably more benificial to humanity than sitting at home in order to save the money. but it depends of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose it does depend on what one considers life is all about

I'm curious though, if you could tally up the money it costs you for drinks with friends, and then somehow (maybe not practically possible) figure out how many people you could have save from starvation and hence how many people you could save, what would be your cut off point? Say, 0.1 lives (although a 'boring' life of some guy in Africa) for a night of drinks with your friends?

[ScottyP431]

HP,

The people oppising daryn seem like the type with whom it is useless to argue with.

As for should they be working their balls off, possibly. In a somewhat ironic twist, people who dedicate their entire lives to others, like Ma Tharessa, are probably anti-utillitarian. It's easier to proscribe utillitarian solutions to individual decisions like the one in the OP than to an entire life. Perhaps by living selfishly and amassing wealth one could start a successful company who's products would save millions etc.

[HP]

I see

and yeah I agree with working your balls off may not necessarily be the best for the greater good. Gotta do the EV calcs and all

[george w]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Is this a personal question or a question about what the meaning of life is for everyone?

[/ QUOTE ]

i mean that going out for drinks with friends is probably more benificial to humanity than sitting at home in order to save the money. but it depends of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose it does depend on what one considers life is all about

I'm curious though, if you could tally up the money it costs you for drinks with friends, and then somehow (maybe not practically possible) figure out how many people you could have save from starvation and hence how many people you could save, what would be your cut off point? Say, 0.1 lives (although a 'boring' life of some guy in Africa) for a night of drinks with your friends?

[/ QUOTE ]

one side of this is that if i never went out i would probably go crazy or i would be very depressed and ineffective. also, where do i send my check to save someone's life after i've saved all this alcohol money? and what is your viewpoint on all this? i don't know what my cutoff is but realistically i think it's more than one.

[HP]

well to answer where do you send the check, I'll list a few charities, but I'm no expert on charities.

Preventing the loss of your ability to make further money to give to others makes sense to me. That would not be wrong in an utilitarian sense I think.

My viewpoint on all this is utilitarian I guess. The root of it all for me is I feel bad when other humans feel bad, and I feel good when others do, which results in a greater good mentality. I can excuse some of my seemingly wrong actions by thinking about long term EV, 'investing' in myself, but I'm pretty sure I way overdo it.

http://www.heifer.org/

http://www.theirc.org/

These two look alright to me