Uncertainty doesn’t necessarily mean absolute uncertainty. If you save a drowning child, who knows, may grow up to be the next Hitler. But we still assume that saving drowning children is, at least on average, a good thing.
To me, the counter-argument to saving drowning children isn’t the admittedly unlikely “Hitler” one, but more the “let them learn on their own mistakes” one—some will learn to swim and grow up more resilient, and some won’t. The long-term impact of this approach on our species seems much harder to quantify.
Uncertainty doesn’t necessarily mean absolute uncertainty. If you save a drowning child, who knows, may grow up to be the next Hitler. But we still assume that saving drowning children is, at least on average, a good thing.
To me, the counter-argument to saving drowning children isn’t the admittedly unlikely “Hitler” one, but more the “let them learn on their own mistakes” one—some will learn to swim and grow up more resilient, and some won’t. The long-term impact of this approach on our species seems much harder to quantify.