I broadly agree. Maybe my title is a bit clickbaity.
My claim is that, on the margin, hypothetical dilemmas are overrated (especially in ethics, decision theory, and lesswrong), and that most discussions about these hypothetical dilemmas should be replaced by discussions about real-life dilemmas.
e.g. rather than discussing the “child in a pond” problem, people should discuss the “should I donate £1000 to AMF?” problem. The benefit of focusing on the second problem is that you can actually execute your decision.
The second problem is also cheap and scalable!
Other examples: people waste time on “would I hypothetically hide a hypothetical Jew from hypothetical Nazis in my hypothetical attic?” rather than on “should I actually risk my life to actually save an actual person from actual persecution?”
I broadly agree. Maybe my title is a bit clickbaity.
My claim is that, on the margin, hypothetical dilemmas are overrated (especially in ethics, decision theory, and lesswrong), and that most discussions about these hypothetical dilemmas should be replaced by discussions about real-life dilemmas.
e.g. rather than discussing the “child in a pond” problem, people should discuss the “should I donate £1000 to AMF?” problem. The benefit of focusing on the second problem is that you can actually execute your decision.
The second problem is also cheap and scalable!
Other examples: people waste time on “would I hypothetically hide a hypothetical Jew from hypothetical Nazis in my hypothetical attic?” rather than on “should I actually risk my life to actually save an actual person from actual persecution?”