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So, rather than maybe help lots of people a tiny bit (hard to see the impact), help a small number of individuals a lot.


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"Limited effectiveness"

Even a tiny effect on that much of the population is huge.


A lot of people care but can't make a huge impact. A few people could make a huge impact but don't care (or worse, want to worsen things for short-term profits).

No, but it's also not obvious that having a profound impact on 1000 people is better than having a small impact on a billion people.

If it helps them, why wouldn’t it help other people?

The point is that some things make a proportional difference, which at the level of an individual is minimal but make a real impact if 30-70% of people do it, whereas other things only work with a critical mass, which are then still useless even if 30-70% of people do them because you need 70-100% of people to do it for it to be effective at all.

If you as an individual are going to do something, do the first kind of thing.


There is a huge gap between doing something that will improve your situation only, and one that does at the expense of everyone else.

If you read the article, this is discussed. It’s not a panacea but helping some people is better than shrugging and helping none.

That's how it works, isn't it ? They improve the fate of a single person, to a totally unsatisfactorily low level, and thereby drag down everyone.

So yes you're not helping that individual. In fact you're damaging that individual potentially a lot. But you're helping far more people a little bit.


You do reduce the probability of an issue though. And increase the chance you can help others.

A common reason (from Paul Graham): it adds only a little value to the lives of a lot of people instead of a lot of value to specific people.

It's pretty much just a tautology (which can't even be false). Of course it's true that only a small minority of people will ever have a major impact on many other people.

We are not talking about a huge inconvenience, but we are also not talking about a huge effect. If we want to have a significant impact we can either have almost everybody cut their usage in half, or have a few cut their usage by a few percent.

A situation that benefits a small, essentially random group of people while hurting a larger, equally random group is a bad situation overall. You're getting downvoted because your question is both obvious and irrelevant to the point being made.

It is unhelpful to most people on two levels - firstly, about half of us are below median intelligence. Secondly, not everyone can change the world all at once. There are too many people and too few things to change for that to be feasible. By the numbers, most people are going to have to be satisfied with having no real impact.

This is rather pessimistic, trivializes the argument and assumes that it’s directed only at individuals.

Doing less doesn’t have to mean it’s only an individual’s responsibility. Applying this more broadly, doing less is a category of potential solutions to much bigger problems.

Relying on individuals will never move the needle very far.


In this case, it seems like it only makes a small practical impact.

The people it impacts negatively outnumber the people that benefit from it, it's as simple as that.

I understand your point to a degree, but how will not suggesting people do their part help? I understand why you feel this is not helpful, but the start of your comment seems to suggest you think it's counterproductive. Is this simply because it will potentially motivate people to take more productive actions?

Measures that benefit a group of people implicitly hinder all the rest.
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