Wendy_Collings comments on Something to Protect - Less Wrong
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I totally agree with "Anon", and others who made similar points in the Circular Altruism post. Context matters! Is it a one-time choice, or an iterated choice? Is there an upper limit to the number of deaths, or no limit? Are the 500 the number of people on the sinking ship/last people on planet earth, or possible victims from a much larger pool? You can only do the math and make a rational decision when you have ALL the numbers from the relevant context.
The first steps of rationality lie not in separating problems from their context, but in determining what context is relevant.