Eliezer:
“I was shocked to discover that in 45 episodes, not once does Wile E. Coyote catch the Roadrunner. Despite his increasingly meticulous planning and his use of advanced technology, every attempt ends not only with failure but with disgrace or injury to the coyote, while the Roadrunner may not even be aware that he is being pursued. Clearly, 20th century American culture was contemptuous and dismissive of success and ‘winners’ in general.”
nazgulnarsil:
NASA is another great example of breathtaking levels of waste.
So your objection is to government waste in general, rather than environmentalism in particular?
That’s reasonable, but it doesn’t explain why you brought up environmentalism spending. Should we evaluate all our budget decisions against whether supplying micronutrients to the needy would reduce more suffering?
If you want to argue for foreign aid spending on these things, go ahead, I probably even agree with you, but it’s disingenuous to blame “environmentalism.” As if we couldn’t afford both!
Even if the goal is just reduction of suffering among the government’s own citizens, I think a case could be made that lasting improvement of conditions in Africa would have long-term benefits for the entire world more than sufficient to justify the cost.
Eliezer: “I was shocked to discover that in 45 episodes, not once does Wile E. Coyote catch the Roadrunner. Despite his increasingly meticulous planning and his use of advanced technology, every attempt ends not only with failure but with disgrace or injury to the coyote, while the Roadrunner may not even be aware that he is being pursued. Clearly, 20th century American culture was contemptuous and dismissive of success and ‘winners’ in general.”
nazgulnarsil:
So your objection is to government waste in general, rather than environmentalism in particular?
That’s reasonable, but it doesn’t explain why you brought up environmentalism spending. Should we evaluate all our budget decisions against whether supplying micronutrients to the needy would reduce more suffering?
If you want to argue for foreign aid spending on these things, go ahead, I probably even agree with you, but it’s disingenuous to blame “environmentalism.” As if we couldn’t afford both!
I think so.
Even if the goal is just reduction of suffering among the government’s own citizens, I think a case could be made that lasting improvement of conditions in Africa would have long-term benefits for the entire world more than sufficient to justify the cost.