From "Why Effective Altruists Fear the AI Apocalypse/A conversation with the philosopher William MacAskill" (NY Magazine).
Much more at the link — including the fear of the AI apocalypse — but nothing about abortion. I pictured commenters raising the subject, so I looked elsewhere to see what MacAskill has to say about it.
Here's an interview he did with Tyler Cowen a couple weeks ago:
COWEN: Should the EA [effective altruism] movement be anti-abortion?
MACASKILL: I don’t think so.
COWEN: Why not? If you look at hedonistic utility, if you have more people who are not at repugnant conclusion margins, you’d have somewhat more people, not that many more, right?
MACASKILL: I think a few things. The first is, if you think that it’s good to have more happy, flourishing people — and I think if people have sufficiently good lives, then that’s true. I argue for that in What We Owe the Future. Then, by far, by overwhelming amounts, the focus should be on how many people might exist in the future rather than now, where perhaps you have a really good fertility program, and you can increase the world population by 10 percent. That’s like an extra billion people or so.
But the loss of future life and future very good life if we go extinct — that’s being measured in the trillions upon trillions of lives. The question of just how many people should be alive today is really driven by, how would that impact the long-term flourishing of humanity?
That being said, like all things considered, I think there’s this norm, there’s this idea at the moment that it’s bad to have kids because of the carbon footprint. I think that only looks at one side of the ledger. Yes, people emit carbon dioxide, and that has negative effects, but they also do a lot of good things. They innovate, and there’s an intrinsic benefit too. They have happy lives. Well, if you can bring up people to live good lives, then they will flourish, and that’s making the world better. They also might be moral changemakers, and so on.
But then, the question — even suppose you think, “Okay, yes, larger family sizes are good,” the best way of achieving that — it would seem very unlikely, to me, that banning abortion, or more like very heavily restricting women’s reproductive rights, is the best way of going about that....
Posts
43 comments:
“ But the loss of future life and future very good life if we go extinct — that’s being measured in the trillions upon trillions of lives.”
Bullshit. If we go extinct, then like the dinosaurs we’ll probably be replaced by something better. That’s trillions upon trillions of even better lives, and that’s what we should want for the future.
The second premise is just that, in expectation, there are enormous numbers of future people.
Well, maybe not.
For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new data from the United Nations.
I guess it would figure on your time horizon. To keep things in perspective, about only 7%
of the people who have ever lived are alive today. That percentage may go up some before the earth's population levels off but the vast majority of the human population is dead.
Sounds like just another set of Control Freaks wrapping their fetish in an altruistic flag.
If we're really concerned about future generations, the best thing you can do is kill off every last Marxist you can find
McCaskill’s moral view of abortion seems far more long term than the future of the baby already in the womb, which is where most anti-abortionist have their concern. On a similar note, I think many who hold a notion like McCaskill about “owing the future” pass over the morality of those distant from us. I’ll give as an example Sri Lanka.
What do you mean "we," junge?
Reminds me a bit of Truman's comment that just once he'd like to hear from a one-handed economist.
And "anti-abortion" is about as fuzzy a term as can be used. I'm anti-abortion in my own eyes but wouldn't criminalize it tout court (or even discourage it in some cases).
Niall Ferguson makes a point but from the opposite end: those alive today may represent at most 10% of all humans who ever existed, and the best-selling historian argues that we ignore their wisdom (since we can't improve their lot) at our peril.
"If people matter morally regardless of their distance from us in space, then they also matter regardless of their distance in time."
That seemingly innocuous statement leads to some, ahem, unusual conclusions. Since there are billions and billions and billions of people distant in space and/or time, the sum of their "good living" is much, much bigger than the sum of those we actually know and are close to. So 99.9999%+ of our moral caring should be to those who are distant. Which means that we pretty much shouldn't do anything for friends and family but only do things for the distant.
So perhaps we should work backwards. Because it is right to care more about those close to us, we should severely morally discount those distant from us in space and time.
AI in charge could more effectively compel future-favoring behaviors. A victory on points.
If he's not physically intervening to prevent abortions, then he's full of crap. Or is it only distant, hypothetical future generations that we should care about?
(For those who aren't familiar with Mr. MacAskill, he advocates an interesting variant on utilitarianism that extends utilitarian principles to other species. And giving your money to others to do things that he thinks are worth doing.)
It's fortunate that we have a wanker like MacAsswipe to explain the interests of future people to us. Since he is the only person smart enough to understand them.
Ever read Horton Hears a Who?
"we should still give very substantial moral consideration to people who are not yet with us"
Not at all. We want what we want and we want it now--Covid subsidies, Medicaid expansion, debt cancellation, you name it. Let future suckers pay.
"The second premise is just that, in expectation, there are enormous numbers of future people"
Remains to be seen. Progress has already squashed fertility. Climate alarmism is bound to squash it further--we should have fewer kids for Gaia's sake, and the actual greening measures will make life much harder and more expensive, setting a neo-Malthusian cycle in motion.
If better lives for greater numbers is a measure of effective altruism, prog policies need to be changed pronto.
Typical theorist. Doesn’t want to accept the consequences of his theory.
He’ll be gone while old, childless people will suffer the most.
The best thing we can do for future generations is to provide them the means to get off the planet.
Lucky for them, Elon is working on it.
The premise is flawed, though -- the moral weight we assign to people isn't necessarily driven by their physical proximity, but by something like relational proximity. In general, one owes more of a duty to one's spouse, children, siblings, and parents than to a stranger on the street, and more duties to one's neighbour than to someone who lives a thousand miles away whom one has never met.
My impression is that people who try to flatten this relational hierarchy with the argument that people should matter morally to us the same, regardless of distance or relationship, are usually just doing so as an excuse to be an asshole to the people they ought to treat decently because they're so highmindedly looking out for the interests of some theoretical people somewhere else who, most conveniently, aren't nearby to say what they want or need.
I don't think we should entirely discount the billions of future people who might someday exist generations from now. But if the AI apocalypse becomes a convenient excuse for present-day philosophers and activists to crap all over people they dislike for other reasons, well, I'll be pretty skeptical. I think we should all be skeptical of people who claim the mantle of altruism.
If we are to consider people across time, then we should also look backward and stop judging historical figures by current standards.
"When I was younger and getting morally concerned, the first place I started was voting for the Greens."
This guy's philosophy is surely a rationalization for the Green New Deal. The entire CAGW scam isn't based upon science. It's a prediction about events in the distant future based upon corrupt data and faulty computer models that have been dead wrong for decades.
The purpose of the scam is make liberals feel good and get money to the liberal elites.
The Green New Deal is dependent upon Chinese slave labors. At a recent FB live meeting held by an OPPD director, I asked him something about the Chinese slaves. His reply, "I don't want to talk about Chinese slaves."
OPPD wants to spend at least $29 billion to achieve net zero carbon. It won't make one bit of difference.
The Left is totally and completely morally bankrupt. Insolvent.
I spent my whole career cleaning up the toxic and mutagenic wastes left behind by the greatest generation and their parents. Boo motherfucking who. We boomers also collectively as a nation made clean air and water a huge priority as well as habitat and species preservation and restoration. We've done a awesome job of it. I can't remember a time of my life when the northeastern seaboard had clean air free of coal pollution with Crystal clear ponds and lakes. Eagles and osprey are back to fishing falcons and Hawks have tons of varmints to eat while the bears and the coyotes wander the classic small towns of New England.
Of course you conservatives fought every bit of environmental improvement along the way.
I enjoyed the book review in the 9-26 Wall Street Journal by Barton Swaim.
"Rarely have I read a book by a reputedly important intellectual more replete with highfalutin truisms, cockamamie analogies and complex discussions leading nowhere."
Just as we apply a discount rate to future cash flows for present day valuations, we have to apply a discount rate to the well-being of future generations. Their well-being is less important than our current wellbeing. Furthermore, we don’t know what future conditions will be, so we can’t even calculate their future well-being.
Restricting human rites... a novel suggestion. Perhaps we could recognize the dignity and agency of women and men to acknowledge that there is no mystery in sex and conception, and the wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice. That diversity [dogma] denies individual dignity, individual conscience, and intrinsic value of human life. That feminists are from Venus, masculinists are from Mars, and social progressives are from Uranus. Lose your Pro-Choice ethical religion.
As for AI (Anthropogenic Intelligence), we can't reconcile with our own intelligence, so, yeah, it would probably mean that we take a knee, beg, and bray to the secular overlords.
Oh, and natural and anthropogenic CO2, attribution not forthcoming, the radiative effect is observable, the thermal effect is inferred and likely net zero, the molecule is Greening the planet, emit in the lose dosage that humans are capable, and carbon is indeed the "God" atom of organic life.
So pretty much the philosophical viewpoint of IT. It's not too late to turn Earth into Camazotz!
Should the EA [effective altruism] movement be anti-abortion?
Who is anti-abortion? People... persons recognize the dignity and agency of women and men, and are consciously, rationally, logically pro-life.
Shhh ... you don't want all those people in the past to start making demands on us ...
It's a cliché, but still worth asking:
"What's posterity ever done for US?"
I also question the notion that people matter morally to us the more physically distant they are. No one cares about people in other countries that they will never meet as much as the people they interact with on a daily basis. Frankly, I care more
About what happens to my dogs than what happens to some stranger I will never meet.
"No, no. Can't you see? The point isn't to care about troublesome people who already exist *now*. The point is to care about imaginary people hundreds of even thousands of years in the future. Just imagine them! That's the wonderful thing about people in the future. You can imagine them to be any way you'd like."
"Nonetheless, we should still give very substantial moral consideration to people who are not yet with us."
Agreed. Are you willing to talk about the unborn?
If people matter morally regardless of their distance from us in space, then they also matter regardless of their distance in time.
My God that is a stupid statement.
People who are distant from us in space exist.
People who are distant from us in time are a creation of the human imagination. They do not exist.
We have little idea what will or won't benefit the people of the future. The people of today exist and have more definite needs. Future people are too speculative.
Sweeney's point is confirmed by the hypothtical philosophical trolley problem. If, as many choose, the needs of our literally nearest and dearest matter more than the needs of many more distant strangers, then all the rest of the argument fails.
The relatively rich people of the future should make sacrifices to help the relatively poor people of today. Instead, greenies want us to make sacrifices to make life easier for our (significantly higher income) children.
"Reminds me a bit of Truman's comment that just once he'd like to hear from a one-handed economist."
Wasn't Truman a Democrat? What he wanted was someone who'd tell him that what he wanted to do had no negative implications.
"There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs." - Thomas Sowell
And there when I was reading this, I at first thought that he was giving a vote, so to speak, to those who came before us. Call it, as Chesterton did, the Democracy of the Dead.
"If people matter morally regardless of their distance from us in space, then they also matter regardless of their distance in time."
Why? When people die they can't be helped. If future people matter then we should be obligated to create as many future people as can barely eat. Living at all creates a 0.0000001 positive utility, so the future earth needs 40 Billion people who are barely alive.
If you are interested in this issue look at Scott Alexander's Astral Codex X site under "What Do We Owe The Future." That is a great summary of BS Philosophy.
Howard points out correctly that even as the US increased its numbers from 137 million citizens in 1945 to 334 million citizens in 2022, we have cleaned up the air and water and wild animals are returning except in the most densely populated areas. So refusing to have children isn't the way forward as much as well-thought-out policies, such as avoiding clear-cutting as much as possible. And we used to need thousands of acres of one kind of tree in order to have pulp for newspapers. But even the NYT is fading away. Ditch your NYT subscription, the real forest will thank you. We thought we'd need miles giant copper mines to wire the world for telephones but now we do wireless. So, thank you, Howard, for your service. The 25% of the US adults, mostly Dems, socialists and Communists who have no children and don't intend to have any can't tell their children to thank you and your kind. But all the little Republican children will be smiling in the future.
The moral hazard of depriving a post-mortem (perhaps through cancellation) and unconceived... a glimmer, perhaps, in his or her mother and father's eyes, an egg, a sperm, at a distance, a carbon atom, sequestered. Meanwhile, millions of viable by Her Choice, State's Choice or sanction, and her Choice, annually, globally at risk. All's fair in lust and abortion.
Howard:
Real success with cleaning the water and the air meant that the Left needed a new project. Jobs are budgets were at stake! The EPA and JP Stevens declared carbon dioxide a pollutant and now we have the Green New Deal. The Left never rests. CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world.
The farther into the future you look, the less you can possibly even imagine what it is that people then will want or need.
If you are concerned about future generations then you should care if there is a next generation. Each generation forward depends on the immediate generation before it to exist.
And Howard, those people who passed all of those environmental laws and regulations at the turn of the 1960s-1970s were those born mostly in the 1920s and 1930s. Not the Boomers who were either in their 30s or 20s.
Edmund Burke's thesis in his Reflections on the Revolution in France makes basically the same points made by this MacAskill bloke, and without the maladroit verbage.
Hi Ann,
This is the best place on the web to have an online discussion about controversial issues, and to go beyond that small praise, it is a quality to place that often gives good results. It is not uncommon for your posts to be cited on the innner tubes (and even the Wall Street Journal), but also for comments to your posts to be cited. This is because of the effort that you put into facilitating the discussion, and that work is shows itself clearly to me right here. I appreciate the work the two of you do.
I read this post when it went up, I waited to post this take since it is off topic.
Thank you, and have a great day.
P.S. Often you post what I call a "brushback pitch" when someone "leans in a little too close". That is not a perfect analogy, but you know what I mean. I suggest that you pick out more posts that you think are good ones and reply to those. Intermittent reinforcement is powerful. Nothing is more reinforcing than comments from the author.
Alexisa said...
Sounds like just another set of Control Freaks wrapping their fetish in an altruistic flag.
If we're really concerned about future generations, the best thing you can do is kill off every last Marxist you can find
Yes
You also need to add theocratic barbarians as a group of people that need to be suppressed by society.
Post a Comment