ot: Peter singer: drowning child

[scaredyclassic]

If you pass a drowning child and could save him but it would ruin you $1,000 suit do you have an obligation to rescue?

If you could save a sick child across the globe with a $1,000 donation, is there any comparable obligation to rescue?

Why?

[spdrun]

We’re all entitled to our hypocrisy … including him — didn’t he support killing disabled babies (he used spina bifida as an example)?

[scaredyclassic]

not sure it’s really hypocritical. seems logical…

[NotCranky]

What’s happening in Syria? Doesn’t matter since there is no march to war.

[paramount]

This is the same guy who said we’re all bigfoot’s.

[Coronita]

Let me reverse the question a bit…

People probably don’t have an issue donating $1-5/month to feed someone hungry in another country.
Or to drop a $1-3 donation in the mall at the register when the store is raising money for something (breast cancer week, etc,etc,etc)…

But on your way to the shopping mall (say fashion valley), where you plan on spending money that day, do you bother to drop $1 with the guy/gal pan handling at the traffic light? If not, why not and what’s the difference?

[CA renter]

Two children are drowning and you can only save one. One of the children is your own son or daughter. Which one will you save, and why?

[scaredyclassic]

We always save the genetic link. We are so wired.

But what if the drowning kid is from Somalia and you’re walking through a park in turkmenistan. You still save him because he’s right in front of you. The Somalia kid not in front of you doesn’t seem as urgent to save.

We have some duty to fellow humans even not in our tribe even not local. We feel it. But what should we do about it?

[no_such_reality]

[quote=flu]Let me reverse the question a bit…

People probably don’t have an issue donating $1-5/month to feed someone hungry in another country.
Or to drop a $1-3 donation in the mall at the register when the store is raising money for something (breast cancer week, etc,etc,etc)…

But on your way to the shopping mall (say fashion valley), where you plan on spending money that day, do you bother to drop $1 with the guy/gal pan handling at the traffic light? If not, why not and what’s the difference?[/quote]

I don’t because on multiple occasions panhandlers have repeated the same one time juatification as the reason they need help

In other word. There is a high probability they are lying

It’s a false moral equivalence Peter presents.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=flu]Let me reverse the question a bit…

People probably don’t have an issue donating $1-5/month to feed someone hungry in another country.
Or to drop a $1-3 donation in the mall at the register when the store is raising money for something (breast cancer week, etc,etc,etc)…

But on your way to the shopping mall (say fashion valley), where you plan on spending money that day, do you bother to drop $1 with the guy/gal pan handling at the traffic light? If not, why not and what’s the difference?[/quote]

I don’t because on multiple occasions panhandlers have repeated the same one time juatification as the reason they need help

In other word. There is a high probability they are lying

It’s a false moral equivalence Peter presents.

[paramount]

[quote=6packscaredy]We always save the genetic link. We are so wired.

But what if the drowning kid is from Somalia and you’re walking through a park in turkmenistan. You still save him because he’s right in front of you. The Somalia kid not in front of you doesn’t seem as urgent to save.

We have some duty to fellow humans even not in our tribe even not local. We feel it. But what should we do about it?[/quote]

It’s all about The MonkeySphere.

Who is in your MonkeySphere? Who isn’t?

From Cracked:

What do monkeys have to do with war, oppression, crime, racism and even e-mail spam? You’ll see that all of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense once we go Inside the Monkeysphere.

First, picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We’ll call him Slappy.

Imagine you have Slappy as a pet. Imagine a personality for him. Maybe you and he have little pirate monkey adventures and maybe even join up to fight crime. Think how sad you’d be if Slappy died.

Now, imagine you get four more monkeys. We’ll call them Tito, Bubbles, Marcel and ShitTosser. Imagine personalities for each of them now. Maybe one is aggressive, one is affectionate, one is quiet, the other just throws shit all the time. But they’re all your personal monkey friends.

Now imagine a hundred monkeys.

Not so easy now, is it? So how many monkeys would you have to own before you couldn’t remember their names? At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey? Even though each one is every bit the monkey Slappy was, there’s a certain point where you will no longer really care if one of them dies.

So how many monkeys would it take before you stopped caring?

That’s not a rhetorical question. We actually know the number.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html#ixzz2na1PWiHR

[joec]

On the panhandler, I’ve seen the same guy holding a sign saying his car broke down on different weeks. I give 0 to panhandlers…always.

[CA renter]

[quote=6packscaredy]We always save the genetic link. We are so wired.

But what if the drowning kid is from Somalia and you’re walking through a park in turkmenistan. You still save him because he’s right in front of you. The Somalia kid not in front of you doesn’t seem as urgent to save.

We have some duty to fellow humans even not in our tribe even not local. We feel it. But what should we do about it?[/quote]

We are tribal/herd animals, and we have the natural inclination to do what’s in our own self-interest. More often than not, what’s good for the tribe/herd tends to benefit us, personally. Because of this, we will help those who are within our “circle” — those who are visible to us, those with whom we can relate, and those who can influence our immediate situation most directly.

It’s not a matter of “right” or “wrong,” it’s just what has come about as a result of thousands of years of evolution (IMHO). Doing what’s right for the tribe/herd tends to benefit ourselves the most. It’s a survival instinct.

[njtosd]

[quote=CA renter]. . .

It’s not a matter of “right” or “wrong,” it’s just what has come about as a result of thousands of years of evolution (IMHO). . . .[/quote]

Might not even require thousands of years. Very interesting experiment in Russia that resulted in domesticated silver foxes over the course of 40 generations: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/09/06/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/

This was directed evolution (human directed breeding) as opposed to the more random form. But very interesting – especially since the selection was made only for behavior but the result was a group of foxes that had not only behavioral differences, but also differences in appearance and smell.

[Reality]

[quote=flu]
But on your way to the shopping mall (say fashion valley), where you plan on spending money that day, do you bother to drop $1 with the guy/gal pan handling at the traffic light? If not, why not and what’s the difference?[/quote]

Because the panhandler might buy drugs with the $.

Duh.

[Author]

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