DanielLC comments on Rationality Quotes August 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Alejandro1 03 August 2012 03:33PM

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Comment author: bungula 03 August 2012 07:28:59AM 23 points [-]

“I drive an Infiniti. That’s really evil. There are people who just starve to death – that’s all they ever did. There’s people who are like, born and they go ‘Uh, I’m hungry’ then they just die, and that’s all they ever got to do. Meanwhile I’m driving in my car having a great time, and I sleep like a baby.

It’s totally my fault, ’cause I could trade my Infiniti for a [less luxurious] car… and I’d get back like $20,000. And I could save hundreds of people from dying of starvation with that money. And everyday I don’t do it. Everyday I make them die with my car.”

Louis C.K.

Comment author: DanielLC 04 August 2012 02:39:48AM 21 points [-]

… and I’d get back like $20,000. And I could save hundreds of people from dying of starvation with that money.

According to GiveWell, you could save ten people with that much.

Comment author: grendelkhan 29 August 2012 06:20:50PM 10 points [-]

The math here is scary. If you spitball the regulatory cost of life for a Westerner, it's around seven million dollars. To a certain extent, I'm pretty sure that that's high because the costs of over-regulating are less salient to regulators than the costs of under-regulating, but taken at face value, that means that, apparently, thirty-five hundred poor African kids are equivalent to one American.

Hilariously, the IPCC got flak from anti-globalization activists for positing a fifteen-to-one ratio in the value of life between developed and developing nations.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 August 2012 08:42:22AM 9 points [-]

To save ten lives via FAI, you have to accelerate FAI development by 6 seconds.

Comment author: TGM 30 August 2012 08:48:36AM 3 points [-]

Aren't you using different measures of what 'saving a life' is, anyway? The starving-child-save gives you about 60 years of extra life, whereas the FAI save gives something rather more.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 August 2012 02:08:56PM 5 points [-]

...then what are you doing here? Get back to work!

Comment author: Vaniver 30 August 2012 02:21:12PM 3 points [-]

Advocacy and movement-building?

Comment author: Nisan 02 October 2012 03:38:40AM 0 points [-]

Even better!

Comment author: DanielLC 02 October 2012 04:07:08AM 1 point [-]

Ten is better than hundreds?

Comment author: Nisan 02 October 2012 05:44:38AM 2 points [-]
Comment author: MTGandP 02 October 2012 03:29:45AM 0 points [-]

You can do a thousand times better (very conservatively) if you expand your domain of consideration beyond homo sapiens.