army1987 comments on Some reservations about Singer's child-in-the-pond argument - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (120)
I don't think I've ever worn anywhere near $2300's worth of clothes at the same time. In fact, I'm not even sure I've ever worn $2300's worth of anything at all (not counting money in the debit card in my wallet) in the past few years -- my netbook cost about €300 when I bought it several years ago.
Fair enough, I haven't either and I definitely didn't choose the best example there, but my reply to JonahSinick downthread addresses this:
Yes, I could imagine some weird situation where I can dive into a pond but only by destroying $2300's worth of value in the process -- but such a situation would be so far removed from the situations I usually deal with in my daily life that I'm not at all confident about whether I would feel obligated to save the child.
(Yes, I know in principle I could say this about any thought experiment, but...)