“There are lives at stake, Sherlock! Actual human lives—just, just so I know, do you care about that at all?”
“Will caring about them help save them?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake.”
-- Sherlock (BBC series), season 1, episode 3 “The Great Game”
Yes, I know that if you correct for differences in caring due to distance/scope insensitivity/etc. it does help save them, and that caring doesn’t preclude skepticism about which actions are helpful, and that in this particular case Sherlock should have refused to respond to blackmail and there’d have been fewer deaths. But it works as a retort to “can’t say no” spending. Don’t give to some counterproductive charity because you care about starving kids in Africa, give to the Against Malaria Foundation because it makes fewer kids dead.
-- Sherlock (BBC series), season 1, episode 3 “The Great Game”
Yes, I know that if you correct for differences in caring due to distance/scope insensitivity/etc. it does help save them, and that caring doesn’t preclude skepticism about which actions are helpful, and that in this particular case Sherlock should have refused to respond to blackmail and there’d have been fewer deaths. But it works as a retort to “can’t say no” spending. Don’t give to some counterproductive charity because you care about starving kids in Africa, give to the Against Malaria Foundation because it makes fewer kids dead.
I might quote that the next time I see “like this if you care” on Facebook.