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PhilGoetz comments on Circular Altruism vs. Personal Preference - Less Wrong
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This is interesting, because I think we actually do this in the US. Life and death fits into our binary way of thinking. Comfort doesn't; and so we don't quantify and consider it except in the very specific circumstances of our own lives.
I wonder if Asian countries may think in less binary terms, and thus place more value on comfort and other non-binary measures; resulting in Western nations perceiving them as placing a low value on life.
My guess is that Americans don't consider it immoral to inconvenience people while they do consider it immoral to kill people and thus the latter triggers a special schema. Killing yourself doesn't trigger that schema except for suicide, but normally neither does imposing small risks on others. Sensitivity to unnaturally small probabilities screws the system up.