EDIT: the Schelling point for the caring threshold seems to be shifting toward progressively less intelligent (but still cute and harmless) species as time passes
I tried. But it’s written in extreme Gwernian: well researched, but long, rambling and without a decent summary upfront. I skipped to the (also poorly written) conclusion, missing most of the arguments, and decided that it’s not worth my time. The essay would be right at home as a chapter in some dissertation, though.
Leaving aside the dynamics of the Schelling point, did the rest of my reply miss the mark?
What I mostly got out of it is that there are two big ways in which the circle of things with moral worth has shrunk rather than grown throughout history: it shrunk to exclude gods, and it shrunk to exclude dead people.
Leaving aside the dynamics of the Schelling point, did the rest of my reply miss the mark?
I’m not sure what your comment was intended to be, but if it was intended to be a summary of the point I was implicitly trying to make, then it’s close enough.
Have you read The Narrowing Circle?
I tried. But it’s written in extreme Gwernian: well researched, but long, rambling and without a decent summary upfront. I skipped to the (also poorly written) conclusion, missing most of the arguments, and decided that it’s not worth my time. The essay would be right at home as a chapter in some dissertation, though.
Leaving aside the dynamics of the Schelling point, did the rest of my reply miss the mark?
What I mostly got out of it is that there are two big ways in which the circle of things with moral worth has shrunk rather than grown throughout history: it shrunk to exclude gods, and it shrunk to exclude dead people.
I’m not sure what your comment was intended to be, but if it was intended to be a summary of the point I was implicitly trying to make, then it’s close enough.