The Most Good You Can Do | Peter Singer | Talks at Google

[@mpking-ey7ys]

10:33 There is another more interesting event happening?

[@annhibbert9128]

From what I’ve heard in Australia, the health care system in US is less than most people require. The death rate result of Covid 19 is directly related to US residents poor health status.

[@by483924]

GOD! If you don't want to get frustrated and angry during this video, skip the presumptuous young lady starting at 48:00. She's one of those self-centered people that thinks an extended dialogue between her and the speaker is what others showed up to watch. P.S. Her point is weak, too. It's the classic case of "This is the stuff I like thinking about; therefore it's objectively important, and everyone should recognize that." Definitely raised in a house with way too much positive encouragement/not enough bitterness and cynicism. ...Needs to listen to a Tom Waits song.

[@tylestelzig6963]

+by483924 Actually I really enjoyed that exchange...clearly the young lady is somewhat presumptuous and makes a comically weak argument. But I enjoyed watching Peter Singer, one of the world's most imminent philosophers, respond to her. I laughed as I could see him holding back laughter when responding to her points, especially when she emphasized how expensive these great art festivals were (lol) and when he basically said, although more politely, that he was done talking to her but that "I'd rather help people be able to see than come together around art, and I'd hope that you'd be able to find other (cough, cheaper) ways to encourage people to have that artistic activity". lol, destroyed. I even think that in addition to being amusing, that exchange can be useful. Hopefully it can help some people realize that they are just as silly to want to privilege their own pet project...or at least to do so under the guise of 'philanthropy'. For example, Peter Singer talked about paying for a friend's dog's hospital bills. This isn't the most effective way to help people in an impartial way; it's just another way to privilege your own interests. Nothing wrong with that, in fact it's good to be nice to your friend, but you shouldn't think it's charitable giving and take it out of the budget you'd allocate to improving the world (which you can do hundreds of times more effectively in other ways).

[@pamelabibby7170]

anti abortionists could be philosophers we will get u singer

[@MrMjwoodford]

If the object is not only to assist people in need but to bring all of us into a civilisation in which there is as little poverty as possible, then arts and humanities belong to the vision of any civilisation. Naturally, some work takes priority over others, but arts and humanities are essential to the war of ideas, and, if that war is won, the rest follows.

[@oobhave7374]

hard to appreciate art on an empty stomach...

[@-whackd]

Yeah lol let's get some starving Africans some sociology degrees instead of antibiotics and LED lights.

[@JakeWitmer]

52:00 Ah...so a huge cost detracting from artwork and creativity is ...compliance with government coercion. Essentially: Burning money. In fact, circumventing or avoiding or paying protection money to coercive parasites is the number one cost most people pay for everything they do...whether that's "effective altruism" or "narrow self-interest."

[@ScorchedEarthRevenge]

I am a big fan of Peter Singer. Great talk.

[@thesunshinewrathhungabunga1845]

2LegHumanist I really like him too :)

[@jackarroway6317]

I like clowns too! And he is a big one.

[@ScorchedEarthRevenge]

@@jackarroway6317 I have no doubt you like clowns.

[@jackarroway6317]

@@ScorchedEarthRevenge Which is why I like you!

[@Chrysaphius]

Everyone at Google has vision problems. I hope they are working to further transhumanism so future generations won't have to worry about vision problems.

[@eratera5836]

Damn ... i blew that thing up like the death star ... Annikan Skywalker just hit the 0.01% weak spot and it exploded ...

[@AustenSummers]

That lady at 48:00 is so silly

[@JakeWitmer]

18:00 The part Singer misses is that one charity can be much more effective spending 1% on programs even compared with 99% spent on programs from another charity. Effectiveness depends on (1) Talent and skill of execution (2) intelligent choice of goals. The most effective programs, by far, would reinstate capitalism effectively. If that's not possible for some reason (it is, but pretend it's not), the prior two points still hold. Choice of goal is almost everything, math and physics talent follows that.

[@aliceansfield1]

The fellow introducing the talk would benefit from deleting the "um's" from his communicating skills.

[@karlnord1429]

+Alice Ansfield RIGHT!?! He needs to work for a month painting, or on a paving crew. It will take the lack of confidence right out of him.

[@advaitshanker8498]

He went out of his comfort zone. That's admirable.

[@asifmuniruniverse7732]

respected; thanks for your appreciatence but maybe I'm not capable for more maybe or may be not but not hopeless, everything possible

[@publicme]

I'd like to suggest a major flaw in Singer's reasoning: It can fail to ever effectively resolve the problem we face with global poverty. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what that richest individuals in the world could do. But we prefer to let them go on creating poverty by not paying people enough in wages and instead hording it all for themselves. So, our energies would be better spent focused on the root challenge: Getting all of the super wealthy under the control of the masses, make them give more, make them pay better wages, etc etc. So, yeah, the big problem with Singer's approach is that it's like charity... it might alleviate some pain and suffering while allowing the core problem to persist. Root out greediness by the richest class and work down from there.

[@robinbongers9843]

TobiasPublicme I would like to suggest reading 'The Life you can Save' which is a short book by Peter Singer, going over a lot of questions and criticisms such as your own. Obviously you are not the first to raise this point, and when working seriously on this kind of theory, it will come up very early on in the process. I really think that you may change your mind after reading the book.

[@tobiasbrown1882]

Robin Bongers Will check it out. Thanks.

[@Chilcottj]

+TobiasPublicme Why not both? I think what you're saying is very important and I think we're slowly moving in that direction, but its going to be a while before we really get there and in the meantime there are a lot of people out there in immediate need that could use the help of anyone thats willing.

[@tobiasbrown1882]

Joe Chilcott Good point. As long as charity doesn't serve as a substitute for longer term root to branch change, it might be a good thing. But then again it might provide the relief to those effected that will quiet them down so there's less pressure to fix the fundamental problems.

[@102nickplays]

The richest people wouldn't be quite so rich if instead of buying their latest and greatest products we donated that money to charity.

[@JakeWitmer]

16:30 This is everything that's wrong with the world. BTW: Mises' view of capitalism holds that barriers to donating, sending, and requesting money be totally eliminated. There's more charity, and more effective charity in a capitalist system. (The current system is not capitalist.)

[@MrMjwoodford]

If we all gave the majority of our income to the poor, we would succeed in the end in achieving an equality of working people but not with bosses. The best charity you can give to is a movement toward international democractic socialism.

[@jackarroway6317]

LOL, ok... but YOU FIRST. No, the best charity you can give to is an institute that will do a lobotomy on every fool that speaks without knowledge. First, you can NEVER achieve equality in the sense of 'equity' that you mean my dear liberal semi-Commie, for the simple reason Darwin called 'Natural Selection'. There are smarter people, and dumber ones, and over time, no matter what kind of forced economic equalization you used, the money would migrate back into the hands of the smarter people, who would be offering some kind of service or product that everyone wants, which includes the dumber people who don't start their own business, and just pay out of pocket to get it. KIND OF LIKE NOW, since thats how life works. SEc0ndly, you would not live to see the great 'movement' to communism that you think you support, because Communist governments are inherently fascist, mostly out of the pragmatic belief that if they kill or enslave between 5% and 20% of the newly Commie population, they will secure the new ideology by getting rid of the intellectuals, the teachers and professionals who know enough to re-infect the general population with ideas of governments that aren't fascist. And I just don't think you're bright enough to be at the top sending out the execution orders, so you will likely be among the proletariate from which the murdered and enslaved who are sent off to the re-education camps are taken, so you stand a good chance of being selected for that end of the stick.

[@jeroldpaquette9068]

Not a Bad idea, where should the $$ go?

[@williamsimkulet7832]

45:00 Re: Positive morality on a spectrum. This is, to borrow Frankfurt's term, bullshit. We can easily illustrate this with the blindness charity. If I have $10 extra, and I kind of want to see a new movie, then I have a choice - (1) Go see the movie, or (2) help a blind person see. Peter Singer is a Utilitarian, and clearly (2) creates far more utility than (1). I can't then say "But I've already helped 567 blind people this month..."; that is irrelevant. Note: For Frankfurt, to bullshit is to say something w/o caring whether your audience believes you, but only that they believe or do something unrelated. Singer here is not trying to get us to see obvious utilitarian black and white math situations as "morality on a spectrum," he's trying to present his theory in such a way that encourages objectively morally monstrous people to be slightly less objectively morally monstrous. But he's not lying here - there's no way that he believes his audience will believe what he says; rather it seems he's paying lip service to an excuse - something they can tell themselves while knowing it's false that will help them do the slightly less evil thing. Of course, for the utilitarian, being evil isn't blameworthy (nothing is); so ad hoc bullshit designed to get people to behave less viciously isn't a moral problem. Bullshit, like lying, aren't wrong for the utilitarian if they maximize happiness. That said, you can still advocate saving drowning children without being a utilitiarian, a bullshitter, or a liar.

[@gazlanham2250]

oh fuck just what need another ism

[@ivanvolf7570]

The value of military spending globally has grown steadily in the past years and reached 2.24 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022. Would using this money not solve your "altruism" question while saving millions of lives lost in wars? Your pretense humanity is worthless!

[@jvb9553]

"I will make my altruism as effective as possible for you. This is how I justify my eccentric wealth. You got a problem with that?"

[@mustafakandan2103]

Peter Singer is one of two most overrated thinkers of our time. In general , there is not much to fault in the causes that he so passionately advocates for. The problem is he attempts to dogmatically apply philosophical tools (formal logic) to areas that require a more flexible approach. It is misguided to apply such methodology to questions of morality or applied ethics. Life in this world is too complicated for that. Incidentally, the other overrated intellectual is the political thinker Noam Chomsky. At least in his case, as an academic linguist he did some important work prior to focusing on politics, in which he blunders time and time again.

[@THEHARMONIKZ]

Tax dodgers ask philosopher to give talk. Cheque received!

[@jackarroway6317]

Singer's precepts of morality are simply flawed, since they're a matter of opinion on a personal level rather than giving macro considerations priority. In a world of 8 Billion people (compared to 2.5 BB people in 1945) it is an impossibility that human want, need, and suffering will not exist. And since deprivation is often an unavoidable element of life, and death,,, suffering is a natural feature. Meaning that trying to keep all people comfortably alive, which will exacerbate the over-population trend to the point of collapse, is unnatural, and destructive to the human race. In addition, spending on luxuries isn't immoral or amoral, it is a moral use of an individual's funds because as when buying any product, it supports business, which supports individual jobs, and adds to the expansion of national GDP and therefore economic stability for your nation, and any other nation that supplies materials or labor for the product. Economically speaking that is an unequivocal 'good', since no labor or material would be supplied unless there are businesses and laborers who benefit from the production function willingly (this excludes slave labor). And lastly, donating your wealth to 'Relief Agencies' (charity) is in general a waste of one's economic resources, for the simple reason that the largest part of donated monies is never utilized for charitable purposes, but instead goes to the administrative costs of running the charity, which means that any charity is essentially a business that expends (up to 90% of) donations to pay very high executive salaries, and continue generating more donations. With such a small portion of each donated dollar actually being dedicated to 'relief' of the problems for which money is raised, and at the same time removing that donated dollar from the economic chain employing people in productive labor producing goods for the marketplace, it can be reasonably postulated that the giving away of one's wealth to charities has a net negative effect on the economies and standard of living of every nation of the world, acting to deny economic enrichment of the labor pools of all nations as a follow on effect, imparting a negative economic effect to the labor pool of our world economy that outweighs the positive effect derived from net charitable giving (net giving versus gross giving, meaning available charitable dollars after all organizational expenses, ie. costs of fund raising including multi-million dollar executive salaries, and fund raising activities), with few exceptions such as sponsorship of medical research capable of breakthroughs that can have enduring benefits through amelioration of suffering, and the associated drag on the economy related to certain illnesses, such as mental illness and birth defects. Seen in this light, the activity of Bill Gates dunning America's wealthy for charitable giving pledges can be seen as an anti-social and somewhat unAmerican effort to separate wealthy individuals from the funds they earned, which if not for Gates concept of 'charity', would remain invested in business supporting the national economy and in turn add velocity to the global economy, acting to uplift the standard of living for workers world-wide.

[@ns1extreme]

So boosting the economy by buying luxury goods you don't need from companies using up our resources is morally good but saving peoples lives and bringing them out of poverty is bad because it's using up resources? One way creates growth for the sake of growth and the other reduces suffering.

[@jackarroway6317]

@@ns1extreme Yes, buying luxury goods is both good for the economy, and good for the buyer who wants them, obviously. Thats assuming the producer of goods is not negatively affecting the environment. I see zero value in giving away economic resources to people who are not a part of this economy, other than if the nation's leaders are then more inclined to ally with us, and provide access to their resources and economy, as in production and trade. Barring that, there's little value other than the psychic rewards the do-gooders get from polishing their God complex. The total amount of suffering only increases as the world population is allowed to grow. The act of giving economic aid helps population growth to out-pace the aid given, and having grown larger creates a gross increase in both the population, and suffering. Natural law is at work in it.