Also, as I know you are aware because you linked to it once at OB, Eliezer, there is the work of Gregory Clark, which suggests a double reason refuting this essay’s line of argument. Not a response directly to your comment then, but as an add on I mention it here.
I suppose this line of reasoning is not new to most here, but since I don’t see it explicitly mentioned....
1) Most controversial, and almost an aside to the main argument that Clark makes but of course the claim that gets the most ink: that there is something in the culture or even genes of certain societies that keeps them from effectively industrializing.
2) The core claim: That throughout history, temporarily increasing the food supply (through minor technical innovation, or through some other windfall) in a non-industrialized population just leads to more births, creating more people living at the subsistence level. The next food or money shock around the corner puts all these people at death’s door. An increase in their numbers just strains the subsistence system even more, inviting an even more horrible catastrophe. Only large, across-the-board increases in the efficiency of economic agents can provide anything other than temporary respite from this trap.
I do not mean to be glib about the horrible, regrettable, and tragic death of a single victim of starvation, let alone millions. But if poorly aimed altruism leads to MORE starvation in the future, then it is not really altruism but self-important, deadly moralizing. I don’t know where the truth of the situation lies, but at the very least I bet I could come up with a cute, leading and misleading thought experiment that would lead the essay-writer to admitting he’s killing 10 times as many people as he claims he’s saving. And I’d be just as reprehensible in my intellectual laziness as he appears to be.
Added: In response to Yvain’s latest post, I can accept that this is one sense a dodge of the question. I suppose I don’t have a response to the central question, if indeed the central question is whether to do everything in one’s power to alleviate suffering, either through food charity or condom charity or whatever. So to separate out the issues here: (1) I find the argument disingenuous, (2) I do not have an answer. …. yet. I must think more clearly about my morals.
Also, as I know you are aware because you linked to it once at OB, Eliezer, there is the work of Gregory Clark, which suggests a double reason refuting this essay’s line of argument. Not a response directly to your comment then, but as an add on I mention it here.
I suppose this line of reasoning is not new to most here, but since I don’t see it explicitly mentioned....
1) Most controversial, and almost an aside to the main argument that Clark makes but of course the claim that gets the most ink: that there is something in the culture or even genes of certain societies that keeps them from effectively industrializing.
2) The core claim: That throughout history, temporarily increasing the food supply (through minor technical innovation, or through some other windfall) in a non-industrialized population just leads to more births, creating more people living at the subsistence level. The next food or money shock around the corner puts all these people at death’s door. An increase in their numbers just strains the subsistence system even more, inviting an even more horrible catastrophe. Only large, across-the-board increases in the efficiency of economic agents can provide anything other than temporary respite from this trap.
I do not mean to be glib about the horrible, regrettable, and tragic death of a single victim of starvation, let alone millions. But if poorly aimed altruism leads to MORE starvation in the future, then it is not really altruism but self-important, deadly moralizing. I don’t know where the truth of the situation lies, but at the very least I bet I could come up with a cute, leading and misleading thought experiment that would lead the essay-writer to admitting he’s killing 10 times as many people as he claims he’s saving. And I’d be just as reprehensible in my intellectual laziness as he appears to be.
Added: In response to Yvain’s latest post, I can accept that this is one sense a dodge of the question. I suppose I don’t have a response to the central question, if indeed the central question is whether to do everything in one’s power to alleviate suffering, either through food charity or condom charity or whatever. So to separate out the issues here: (1) I find the argument disingenuous, (2) I do not have an answer. …. yet. I must think more clearly about my morals.