Helen De Cruz: If Blaise Pascal were alive today and met an Effective Altruist, his report might look like this -- helendecruz.substack.com/p/effective-...

If Blaise Pascal were alive today and met an Effective Altruist, his report might look like this -- helendecruz.substack.com/p/effective-...

Effective altruismhelendecruz.substack.com In the Style of Blaise Pascal's Provincial Letters

If truly written by an Effective Altruist, there would be a TL;DR.

I'm confused: If a penny of actual present suffering is worth a pound of hypothetical future suffering, what's the exchange rate? What about inflation?

Is this some sort of marshmallow test?

What if I'm hungry NOW?

What's the reference? Units of Dickensian suffering?

Effective Altruism for dummies: The Ghost of Christmas Future would like a word.

QALYs I think

Suffering has acronyms now? What has the world come to?

It doesn't matter in the light of trillions of hungry people in the future, including a digital version of you uploaded in some simulation.

"Let them eat simulated marshmallows." Marie Antoinette

What about later quadrillion masses? They also want marshmallows, trillions be damned. Is this just an excuse to keep me from eating my marshmallow?

Mind you, marshmallows are not that good, and they're empty calories. So yeah.

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