The short piece below the picture is not as important as Lewis Bollard on Factory Farming.
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Personal / egomaniacal ask, if you’ve not read / reviewed Losing: Spend 90 seconds skimming the comments here.
This is a scan of a photo I took in ~1986 - sunrise at Galveston:
So if you want to know the truth about the universe, about the meaning of life, and about your own identity, the best place to start is by observing suffering and exploring what it is. ...
Morality doesn’t mean “following divine commandments.” It means “reducing suffering.” Therefore in order to act morally, you don’t need to believe in any myth or story.
You just need to develop a deep appreciation of suffering.
–Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
This may seem obvious and “duh,” but it is worth remembering: No one will live forever. You can’t “save” anyone’s life. (“You’re overthinking this, Cap’n. You got now and you got the second your lights go out. Meantime is the only time there is.”)
Nearly no one dies a “good death” or wants to die (and as I’ve discovered, those who do want to die are having a terrible life).
There are things worse than death. The worst thing you can do to someone isn’t to kill them, but to make their existence extreme suffering.
We should stop asking “How many lives can we save?” The question is, “What can we do to improve lives?”
The question is always: “What can we do to improve lives?”
Example: Saying “climate change will kill X people” is, at best, meaningless. Those X people will die, no matter what. The question is: What can we do to improve the lives of those who are worst off?
Would your proposed policy lead to 5X individuals living in abject poverty and dying young of preventable causes? I know some climate fanatics prefer more poverty and premature death (for others) (to say nothing about cruelty to non-human animals).
Desiring an outcome with more suffering sure seems immoral.
Combine the fact that there are things worse than death / non-existence with the fact that we don’t harm anyone by not bringing them into existence, and we see that Yuval (above) is right.
Ethics simplifies to reducing suffering for those who exist and are sure to exist, as well as preventing the existence of those whose lives would be suffering. (One Step for Animals; Organization to Prevent Intense Suffering)
You can’t “save” a life. But you can make lives better. That is the bottom line.
