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Document comments on How Greedy Bastards Have Saved More Lives Than Mother Theresa Ever Did - Less Wrong
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Comments (24)
Quite good. The title is misleading, though - I was all braced for some silly objectivism.
A better title might be "Charity That Gets Results" or "Trying to do good first and feel good second" or "Thoughts that will let you help people the most."
That was my first thought too, followed by "Isn't Mother Teresa kind of a low bar?".
Yes, it is a low bar. Mother Theresa should not be used as an example of good-doing. She wanted people to suffer so that the others in their confortable lives (us) would have something to pray about, and find peace and redemption in the suffering of others. There are accounts of this by nuns who left the holy mother order,
Pause.
Christopher Hitchens' book on Mother theresa could enlighten you.
The Penn and Teller episode is also a pretty good source.
She's a poor choice for a waterline, but she's a great choice for a headline :p
Touché.
And I wonder what you think about perpetuating the false image. Personally I have trouble with that. Not sure why.
p.s. (BS is a great show.)
The BS "fancy food" episode has got to be my favorite -- there's something about fancy people paying $25 to eat off-brand cool-whip from a whine glass that cracks me up.
Perpetuating the false image isn't desirable, but I think minimal in this case....
I'd hardly call "greedy bastards save more lives than mother theresa" a shining endorsement :p
The idea behind the title is to look interesting enough to read, to a large number of people.
The article's intended readership isn't lesswrong -- see the $100/essay threads for more :)
I don't think LessWrongers are the only ones who'll expect Yet Another Rant About How Selfish Entrepreneurial Sprit Does More Good In The World Than Good Intentions ... your post is a bit more original than that.
(I'm a third data point for "expected silly objectivism from the title")
"expected silly objectivism from the title" isn't good or bad -- the question is was there a title that would have made more prospects read this....
As long as objectivists also open it... non-objectivists opening it to mock what appears at first glance to be written by a dumb-objectivist is good :p
Some people might not even read it (because they assume they already know it's full of ideological drivel saying nothing they haven't heard a dozen times before), or argue against it based on the title and not the contents (which is unfotunately common on the internet).
That being said, I don't mind the essay title that much, I was just chiming in saying "I got that impression too", and somehow found myself arguing for a point I didn't necessarily support in the first place. How did that happen?
Damn faulty brain. Couldn't it use better criteria for choosing which position to support?
I don't dispute that. The real question here is, will the title attract more readers than a more descriptive, less Objectivist-sounding title? I suspect that it will; titles like this are called "linkbait" for a reason.
It does do this but it also primes a lot of people (bleeding heart liberals, in particular) to disagree with what you're about to say.
Fair enough. That's what the subhead/lead story was for (assuming the bleeding heart liberals get unprimed by the saving a life for $600 /// lead-in story).
Better headline & subhead solicited, on the condition it has the same draw