There are a bunch of issues where I disagree with something. And I could take some meaningless action like many of the ones mentioned, like not buying something in order to protest, but it won’t matter.
Similarly I could spend my whole income to help 1 homeless person or warren Buffett could donate his whole fortune to fix income inequality. But it doesn’t make us hipocrites if we don’t do this action : a real fix for these problems requires a rule change. A federal law to force higher housing densities, a wealth tax on all billionaires not just buffet.
What do you mean by ‘real fix’ here? What if said that real-real fix requires changing human nature and materialization of food and other goods out of nowhere? That might be more effective fix, but it is unlikely to happen in near future and it is unclear how you can make it happen. Donating money now might be less effective, but it is somehow that you can actually do.
A real fix is forcing everyone in a large area to contribute to fixing a problem. If enough people can’t be compelled to contribute the problem can’t be fixed. Doing something that costs you resources but doesn’t fix the problem and negatively affects you vs others who aren’t contributing but are competing with you isn’t a viable option.
In prisoners dilemma you may preach always cooperate but you have to defect if your counterparty won’t play fair. Similarly warren Buffett can preach that billionaires should pay more taxes but not pay any extra voluntarily until all billionaires have to.
But that’s a fix to a global problem that you won’t fix anyway. What you can do is allocate some resources to fixing a lesser problem “this guy had nothing to eat today”.
It seems to me that your argument proves too much—when faced with a problem that you can fix you can always say “it is a part of a bigger problem that I can’t fix” and do nothing.
There are a bunch of issues where I disagree with something. And I could take some meaningless action like many of the ones mentioned, like not buying something in order to protest, but it won’t matter.
Similarly I could spend my whole income to help 1 homeless person or warren Buffett could donate his whole fortune to fix income inequality. But it doesn’t make us hipocrites if we don’t do this action : a real fix for these problems requires a rule change. A federal law to force higher housing densities, a wealth tax on all billionaires not just buffet.
What do you mean by ‘real fix’ here? What if said that real-real fix requires changing human nature and materialization of food and other goods out of nowhere? That might be more effective fix, but it is unlikely to happen in near future and it is unclear how you can make it happen. Donating money now might be less effective, but it is somehow that you can actually do.
A real fix is forcing everyone in a large area to contribute to fixing a problem. If enough people can’t be compelled to contribute the problem can’t be fixed. Doing something that costs you resources but doesn’t fix the problem and negatively affects you vs others who aren’t contributing but are competing with you isn’t a viable option.
In prisoners dilemma you may preach always cooperate but you have to defect if your counterparty won’t play fair. Similarly warren Buffett can preach that billionaires should pay more taxes but not pay any extra voluntarily until all billionaires have to.
But that’s a fix to a global problem that you won’t fix anyway. What you can do is allocate some resources to fixing a lesser problem “this guy had nothing to eat today”.
It seems to me that your argument proves too much—when faced with a problem that you can fix you can always say “it is a part of a bigger problem that I can’t fix” and do nothing.