I read this quote today, and it resonated:

"The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn. - David Barbary, Methodist pastor

It certainly rings true for white American evangelicals, but it quickly occurred to me it applies pretty well to longtermists too. Centering the well-being of far-future simulated super-humans repulses me, but it seems very compelling to the majority of the EA cult.

  • Collectivist@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    I spend a lot of time campaigning for animal rights. These criticisms also apply to it but I don’t consider it a strong argument there. EA’s spend an estimated 1.8 million dollar per year (less than 1%, so nowhere near a majority) on “other longterm” which presumably includes simulated humans, but an estimated 55 million dollar per year (or 13%) on farmed animal welfare (for those who are curious, the largest recipient is global health at 44%, but it’s important to note that it seems like the more people are into EA the less they give to that compared to more longtermist causes). Farmed animals “don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct, they don’t need money, they don’t bring cultural baggage…” yet that doesn’t mean they aren’t a worthy cause. This quote might serve as something members should keep in mind, but I don’t think it works as an argument on its own.

    • YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systemsEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Without wishing to be rude, this seems like a comically false equivalence. On an obvious count: farmed animals bring a lot of baggage. Nobody wants to go to a slaughterhouse, which would be the genuine equivalence here between dealing with a real, messy, argumentative human being, versus just eating the beef with the picture of the friendly cow on the packaging, i.e. advocating for a cost-benefit which favours people who don’t exist yet.