No no no. You’re not supposed to care for people living
now.
You should only care about the loads and loads of people living in
the far future, otherwise you may have to take some actual action rather
than sitting in your castle writing fanfiction.
**[Techno-progressivism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-progressivism)**
>Techno-progressivism or tech-progressivism is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change. Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by the actual stakeholders to those developments. One of the first mentions of techno-progressivism appeared within extropian jargon in 1999 as the removal of "all political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to self-actualization and self-realization".
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So many fucking words… all of which could be easily summed up in a
sentence or two. These people are insufferable dorks. Nobody
communicates this way. And for good reason.
this person didn’t finish the reading I guess - the goal is to
maximize total humans experiencing happiness, not maximize total number
of humans. just wanna say they get their “there’s more people getting
abortions per year than there are people dying” statistic from
Guttmacher, who both doesn’t publish their research collection
methodology, and also claims that 75/100 women in the Middle East /
North Africa are getting abortions yearly which like just scans as basic
Islamophobia, given that they also say that there’s an 80% chance this
stat is incorrect. ofc, abortion is banned in almost all of the muslim
world.
if philosophers are gonna do economic utility maximization they
should really take a statistics class first
> if philosophers are gonna do economic utility maximization they should really take a statistics class first
Stats probably won't help a lot if the data you're basing an argument on is 80% likelihood to be bad.
These folks are perilously close to advocating for the Repugnant Conclusion under the best of circumstances, I'd honestly. be more surprised if they didn't stumble onto it occasionally.
On the bright side, I see only one commenter there who seems to agree
with the OP - and he and OP both admit to be generally anti-abortion and
religious. The post is just poorly masked fundamentalism.
Ah, thanks. My reading of that is that he no longer identifies as an Orthodox Jew (which is an inherently surprising thing for an EA to be). But it's unclear.
>an Orthodox Jew (which is an inherently surprising thing for an EA to be)
There's actually an entire organisation advocating EA in Jewish communities. (Disclosure: I'm in EA* and have some Orthodox Jewish associates there).
*This might lead you to ask what I'm doing in this sub. Well, I *really* dislike Rationality.
Ha, fair enough. I found it and I am surprised that it appeals to Orthodox Jews. This is probably not the correct forum for further discussion of the question.
sigh. another Tomasik-style moral uncertainty argument. also
This is just like how few people really care […] animal welfare
(since they’re not avoiding silk, shellac, driving, and walking on
grass).
When people say they care about animal welfare, they don’t mean
Kingdom Animalia, they mean mammals and fish. Animals you would find in
a child’s picture book. Vertebrates mostly. Caring about the well-being
of insects is an extremely niche position even among vegans. I don’t eat
honey (mostly so people don’t flame me on the internet) but I know
someone who does and it’s no big thing.
It’s telling that just like every other anti-abortion argument,
there’s little to no emphasis on the life children might have
after they’re born. How much good might these “effective
altruists” do if they actually cared about, say, fostering children or
putting some of those cryptocurrency or Facebook funds into child
welfare programs?
>How much good might these "effective altruists" do if they actually cared about, say, fostering children or putting some of those cryptocurrency or Facebook funds into child welfare programs?
In rich countries? Probably not that much. In poor countries this is already done - global health and development prevent illnesses in children, help them get better education, or just give families money.
Or, of course, help reduce unwanted pregnancies, which the OP is against because that post is just religious fundamentalism in disguise.
For consequentialists, this [Spontaneous Abortion] could be as much a
loss as an induced (intentional) abortion, as it prevents a future
person from having lived.
A consequentialist would view wanted pregnancies as the
baseline. And yes they would want to prevent spontaneous abortion. Just
as they would like to reduce induced abortions. Consequentialism would
want to maximize the wanted, cared for, pregnancies and healthy babies
as much as possible. Not sure how it meshes with the rest of the article
or what they’re trying to prove.
> Consequentialism would want to maximize the wanted, cared for, pregnancies and healthy babies as much as possible.
This is only true if you hold to total utilitarianism, which is a very particular variant of consequentialism that--correct me, philosophers, if I'm wrong--is not an overwhelmingly dominant view among utilitarians, never mind consequentialists.
I believe most consequentialists are "rule" based as opposed to "act" based, and with the rule that "everyone has a choice over their body," it would follow that spontaneous abortions and induced abortions should be reduced. I believe this is more moral based than it would be utilitarian.
This is just like how few people really care about global poverty
(since they’re not donating all their money to AMF), the future of
humanity (since they’re not donating all their money to MIRI), or animal
welfare (since they’re not avoiding silk, shellac, driving, and walking
on grass).
Out of context, I would have called this an unfair oversimplification
of EA beliefs (maybe even reaching parody levels!). But in context -
they seem to think this is a serious point!?!?
>the future of humanity (since they're not donating all their money to MIRI)
I'm confident toddlers are more capable (by orders of magnitude) of reasoning on the subject than that. Such an absurd thing to say!
> disingenuous
The comments are an open, undisguised discussion of how all of this is disingenuous wankery in the service of the true goal, maximizing the number of humans by ~~any~~ all means possible.
Anyone suggesting more effective, less autonomy-violating alternatives is being met with "That, too! All of it!"
Congratulations, rationalists, you're the paperclip maximizers now.
I said on here a couple of months ago that a problem with these pricks is that they have no account at all of the internal lives of people who live in their future society, apparently I was mistaken in giving them credit for having any account whatsoever of the internal lives of people *now*
What do you mean? Isn't "The future people have an IQ of 180 because of super effective and moral embryo selection" a full description of their internal worlds? /s
"spontaneous abortion" is in fact the correct medical terminology for the thing that is commonly referred to by laypeople as a "miscarriage". The arguments in the piece are terrible, but this part is accurate!
(Any premature end to a pregnancy is an abortion of the pregnancy, regardless of cause.)
Every womb not occupied is an idle QALY factory going to waste.
No no no. You’re not supposed to care for people living now.
You should only care about the loads and loads of people living in the far future, otherwise you may have to take some actual action rather than sitting in your castle writing fanfiction.
So many fucking words… all of which could be easily summed up in a sentence or two. These people are insufferable dorks. Nobody communicates this way. And for good reason.
I’m pretty sure Singer was arguing for infanticide here rather than abortion restriction.
this person didn’t finish the reading I guess - the goal is to maximize total humans experiencing happiness, not maximize total number of humans. just wanna say they get their “there’s more people getting abortions per year than there are people dying” statistic from Guttmacher, who both doesn’t publish their research collection methodology, and also claims that 75/100 women in the Middle East / North Africa are getting abortions yearly which like just scans as basic Islamophobia, given that they also say that there’s an 80% chance this stat is incorrect. ofc, abortion is banned in almost all of the muslim world.
if philosophers are gonna do economic utility maximization they should really take a statistics class first
On the bright side, I see only one commenter there who seems to agree with the OP - and he and OP both admit to be generally anti-abortion and religious. The post is just poorly masked fundamentalism.
This is just Catholicism, but somehow less fun.
And they wonder why there are less women and more incels in their movement.
sigh. another Tomasik-style moral uncertainty argument. also
When people say they care about animal welfare, they don’t mean Kingdom Animalia, they mean mammals and fish. Animals you would find in a child’s picture book. Vertebrates mostly. Caring about the well-being of insects is an extremely niche position even among vegans. I don’t eat honey (mostly so people don’t flame me on the internet) but I know someone who does and it’s no big thing.
Ah it starts with a ‘im sorry you feel that way’ apology. Very well done.
E: also, ‘seems EA is under increased scrutiny due to FTX, time to publish my anti abortion creed’.
It’s telling that just like every other anti-abortion argument, there’s little to no emphasis on the life children might have after they’re born. How much good might these “effective altruists” do if they actually cared about, say, fostering children or putting some of those cryptocurrency or Facebook funds into child welfare programs?
A consequentialist would view wanted pregnancies as the baseline. And yes they would want to prevent spontaneous abortion. Just as they would like to reduce induced abortions. Consequentialism would want to maximize the wanted, cared for, pregnancies and healthy babies as much as possible. Not sure how it meshes with the rest of the article or what they’re trying to prove.
Out of context, I would have called this an unfair oversimplification of EA beliefs (maybe even reaching parody levels!). But in context - they seem to think this is a serious point!?!?
[deleted]
[deleted]
I noped out of this church-kid-in-a-high-school-debate-ass nonsense after the dozenth mistaken assumption (so, about a page and a half in).
Fascinating argument. I have a counter-proposal: BRRAP BRRAP PEW PEW