The Logic of Effective Altruism http://bostonreview.net/forum/peter-singer-logic-effective-altruism
This seems like a nice addition to recent arguments here on friam re: usefulness, the ontology of ideas, import of philosophy, the existence of the One True Truth, etc. "Effective Altruism" smacks of the same sense of arrogance I get from people who think they or their ideas actually matter or even mean anything at all. This brinkmanship idea many seem to have that "What I'm doing is important!" ... or at the very least "What I do is more XYZ than what you do." I see it time and again when I admit my ignorance of things I'm expected to act macho about ... things like facility with math or knowing how to grill hamburgers. We went to dinner at a friend's place on the 4th. I explained how happy my oncologist and my research nurse were that a few of my periaortic lymph nodes had shrunk by a miniscule amount between the last scan (6 months ago) and this latest one. And I (again) floated my skepticism, which is based on the fact that they only measured in 2 dimensions ... yet my thorax is a 3D object. And, thank the gods, I've gained all the weight I lost during my chemo. So, it seems completely reasonable that a 2D projection of a 3D object may not take into account any rotation or compression due to, e.g. an increase in visceral fat. The male counterpart, who works in medicine though I won't say how to preserve his anonymity, proceeded to mansplain to me that CT scans are actually 3D things and that you can assemble the slices to construct a 3D perspective. [sigh] I just nodded and drank my beer ... because we still had several hours we had to hang out with them, including going to a "special place" he knew of to watch fireworks for free ... because, you know, paying for things just makes you one of the rubes. -- ⇔ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
