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wedrifid comments on Utilitarians probably wasting time on recreation - Less Wrong Discussion
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The hope is that at higher population, third world nations will break out of the Malthusian trap and transition from the shitholes they are now into healthy growing economies. The "Malthusian limit" isn't really a fixed thing anymore, since infrastructure and economic development can raise agricultural output and the sustainable population by orders of magnitude. And a lot of third-world evils - malaria included - have the additional effect of leaving lots of weakened or crippled people, which seems more like the sort of thing that drags a society down than population growth does.
On the other hand, this argument does suggest that fixing things that weaken has more value than fixing things that kill; ie, it's better to prevent a case of childhood malnutrition that leaves an intellectually stunted adult, than to prevent a case of childhood infection that leaves a corpse. I think that this conclusion is one which conventional altruists would find much more reasonable.
I don't pretend to have expertise in history but that hope seems... backwards somehow. What allowed first world countries to reach their current economic state most certainly wasn't reaching a sufficiently high population.
I have no problem just lying to conventional altruists in order to seem 'reasonable' to them. Or, preferably, not talking about (the equivalent of) politics or perhaps saying true and positive things about their 'altruism' that give the impression that I'm on their 'side' without actually having to believe anything crazy. And in cases where their 'altruistic' cause isn't even near the top of the givewell list (or existential risk related) then I'll almost certainly not say outright that they're just giving 50 bucks to take away their guilt, that'd be rude.
What's your goal here? To make them feel better? To avoid seeming like a jerk? Or to further whatever goals you consider altruistic/generally a good idea? If the last one, why lie to them? Because you think there's no way they'll see your point?
Obviously none of us speaks our minds all the time - when I see someone giving to a cause I consider inefficient, I don't shout, "Wait, I know a better way!" But if there's an opportunity, saying "I really wonder if increasing the world's population is a good idea at this point, so I favor charities that focus on quality of life rather than lives saved" seems better to me than false agreement. Jerkitude and lying are not your only options here.
To execute the role of someone with rudimentary social skills and reap the many benefits that go along with that. Sometimes evangelism (or obnoxious invalidation of people's warm-fuzzies) just isn't the most useful action in a given circumstance.
"Wedrifid" is somewhat more forthright than I in this regard.
An example would be deworming, which doesn't save many lives but does improve quality of life and school attendance rates.