Kevin's Watch

I came across this in it's most extreme form for the first time really only a few days ago and found it a quite shocking and difficult ethical dilema to adress.

Start with a 'Titanic' style situation where say an ocean liner founders and of the 1000 passengers there are lifeboats spaces for 200. So 200 people are sitting in the boats surrounded by 800 in the water whose one and only objective is to get into a boat by any means possible. It is beyond question that if permitted, the 800 will swamp the boats and result in the loss of all 1000 people and so with great regret and much wringing of hearts, the occupants put the oars and boat hooks to the only task that will save at least the 200 - they use them to drive away the unfortunates in the water so that at least some will survive.

Now consider the Earth as it moves through space as just such a lifeboat, a lifeboat whose very burgeoning population is threatening the very survival of the whole. It was against the backdrop of ideas such as thiese that US ecologist Garreth Hardin argued that, in a world of limited rescources and growing population, we cannot let the poor weak and disadvantaged consume rescources if it means that the survival of all would be thereby imperiled. In Hardin's essay "Lifeboat Ethics; The Case Against Helping The Poor" he argued that all foreign aid should be stopped forthwith, since to continue it was merely to hasten an end for all as opposed to allowing the necessary loss of the lower acheiving end of humanity. Rich nations he said, had no duty to help the poor, on the contrary it was their duty to accept the harsh reality of the inevatability of inequality, and act to preserve themselves in the face of it.

It's a beastly state of affairs by any reckoning - but one wnders how long it will be before [if it has not already happened] someone or ones in power start remembering such ideas and viewing them in a different and dangerous light.

My already very jaundiced view of how this will go down (if no miraculous technology arrives to avert it) is that it will proceed very much in the manner it goes along today. People look after their own needs first and worry very little about others. I do not think that there would be very much gnashing of moral teeth.

The thought that the 'poor' in underdeveloped countries should be abandoned and left to their own devices because they are 'losers' is disgusting to me, especially since the 'richness' of the West is significantly due to the appropriation of the natural resources of the 'poor' countries. It's a bit like a burglar saying that the people who they stole the food from should be allowed to starve because they are deficient in some way. I'm afraid that it swiftly devolves to 'might makes right' and a Darwinian sort of decision-making and rationalisation.

u.

P.S. I'd be a bit careful with 'lifeboat' ethical problems, peter. From what I have been reading they tend to isolate certain factors for ethical purposes rather than represent actual situations which tend to be more complex and flexible. I came across another take on Lifeboat Earth by Onora Nell (I had a problem with the PDF download but it will load one page each time and if you move ahead to the next page and download it again it will load a new page so it possible to read the whole thing (which I haven't done yet).)

I also found this interesting take on the 'lifeboat problem' that gives it an extra twist: The Lifeboat: Between Horror and Ethics by Greg Pollock

P.P.S Found this good article: Luck, duty and benevolence in the process of my readings about this topic. I think you'll like it, peter!

I'd bet the best way to survive is to help everyone else survive. Not possible on the Titanic. Certainly possible on Lifeboat Earth. Everybody helping everybody cannot fail. The problem is how we've been going about it. The welfare system in the US being as good an example as any of how horrifyingly wrong good intentions can go. We aren't teaching people to fish, we're giving them fish every day. I have no idea how to go about solving these problems.

Fist and Faith wrote: The welfare system in the US being as good an example as any of how horrifyingly wrong good intentions can go.

Yep, the freaking lazy, fish-stealing, stupid, drunken, drugged-up poor.
We love and care for them with all our might, and look what they do to us.

[[BTW, there are quite literally thousands of nation-sized examples of welfare worse than ours...and boy oh boy are we eager to do it their way. We are so soft on them... they only die 5 years younger on average...and younger than peeps in 75 other countries...including third world countries.]]

Vraith wrote:And BTW, there are a fair number of people with significant power who do, in fact, see things that way.

This is exactly my worry - that as the problem becomes more pressing, the political will toward corrective action by cooperation will be less than that toward self orientated methods. At some point the population levels will reach a critical mass where decisions will be forced to the top of the political agenda at an international level and at this point the shit will really hit the fan. I hope, hope, hope we can get our act together in this respect - but I have my doubts.

[Yes U. - I recognise that the idea is in itself somewhat flawed in that it fails to take into account mankinds almost unlimited ingenuity and rescourcefulness when the chips are down; but I suspect that the inherently selfish nature of man, when he reaches the top of the pile to want to stay there is going to be a big big hurdle to overcome. I'll read the links and let you know how I find them.]

Had a look at those articles U. Very interesting stuff. You were correct - The 'Luck, Duty and Benevolence' article seemed to me to be hitting the points best - and in a style that at least conveyed some of the distaste that Hardin's rotton idea should engender. The Nell paper was a bit too dry in it's presentation for my taste [and I'm afraid I skipped a good bit of it ] but at least Robinson gave a summing up of it's conclusions in his article. The Pollock link alas my computer would not load - but it looks interesting and I will give it another shot. Thanks again U. food for thought indeed and a very notty subject

[$200 to UNICEF will result in a human being alive in four or five years that otherwise would not be - thats less than 2% of my earning. Not even close to the 10% Robinson wouls have us give. That wants some thinking about. Fuck Peter - you asshole!]

The lifeboat analogy is misleading in so many ways.

Our resources are not dwindling. In fact, every single resource we have is increasing as we find more, create new ways to make more, or find new uses for stuff that replaces the old. A resource is not a resource until humans find a way to make use of it. Our power to find new uses is limited only by our intelligence, knowledge, and ingenuity. If you look at the general trend of history, our access to resources is increasing, with no signs of slowing down. In fact, we keep jumping up to exponentially greater energy capacity, a process that is just scratching the surface of what we'll do next.

Poverty is ending. Why don't more people realize this? It is a disappearing problem affecting fewer and fewer people. In 20 years, it may be gone altogether. Sure, there will still be people at the bottom, but the bottom will move up for the entire race, for the first time in our history. And it's not happening because of wealth redistribution, but instead due to capitalism spreading.

Our "lifeboat" has the capacity to hold 100 billion humans easily, comfortably, and in prosperity. We're nowhere near this imaginary Malthusian problem.

Vraith wrote:Well, if the "advantaged" are ethically permitted to let the weak, poor, disadvantaged die, those poor, weak folk are ethically permitted to murder the advantaged and take their stuff.

There is no moral equivalence between ostensibly "letting" someone die because you don't give them your property, and murdering someone to take their stuff. I'm not morally responsible for people on the other side of the planet, no more than I'm responsible for aliens on another world. Keeping what I've earned and passing it on to my children is not "letting someone die." If it is, then every single one of us is guilty this very moment as we type on our luxury items (i.e. computers) instead of selling them to give money to the poor. This conversation would therefore justify our own murders.

That's an almost "Biblical" burden of guilt that I flat-out refuse to accept. It's a myth. I'm not guilty just because I was born in a rich country with advantages due to our system of government, our division of labor, our capital investment, etc. Anyone else can take advantage of these proven methods of improving your society. (As more and more people in fact are.)

Vraith wrote:[not to mention that anyone who really thinks a persons "fitness" is defined entirely, or even primarily, by their economic position is a total fucking moron]

"Fitness" in a Darwinian sense is merely a question of whether one is aptly suited for his environment. That question is determined by one's survival. That's it. If you don't see one's economic position as the primary indicator of one's ability to survive, then what would be a greater indicator? Name one.

U wrote:...it will proceed very much in the manner it goes along today. People look after their own needs first and worry very little about others. I do not think that there would be very much gnashing of moral teeth.

What makes you think we worry "very little" about others?? The U.S. alone sends out billions of dollars worth of aid all around the globe, not to mention all the trillions we've given our own poor here in America. There's already quite a bit of moral teeth gnashing. Your view is not only jaundiced, it's not in line with reality.

U wrote:The thought that the 'poor' in underdeveloped countries should be abandoned and left to their own devices because they are 'losers' is disgusting to me, especially since the 'richness' of the West is significantly due to the appropriation of the natural resources of the 'poor' countries. It's a bit like a burglar saying that the people who they stole the food from should be allowed to starve because they are deficient in some way.

While I believe the poor should be left to their own devices, I don't think it's because they're losers, nor do I think this is necessarily a bad thing. I think they should be given the tools to stand on their own feet.

We don't steal resources. Countries sell them. We buy them. We also export quite a bit. Where did this mythical burglar idea come from? Do you really think that our wealth came from abroad? It was just sitting in Africa, unused, and we scooped it up and used it to build history's most prosperous nation? I can't believe that thinking people really believe such fairy tales. Come on, you understand the concept of wealth creation, right?

Vraith wrote:Yep, the freaking lazy, fish-stealing, stupid, drunken, drugged-up poor.
We love and care for them with all our might, and look what they do to us.

This thread is increasingly a fairy tale. Where do you come up with these ideas? No one here is saying that the poor are lazy thieves ... you guys are saying that about the prosperous humans, the ones who build wealth. Apparently, they just took it from the poor??

It's not what the poor are doing to us, it's what we've done to the poor. We've built a dependent class in America by not teaching them to be independent. I don't think they are lazy or stupid. I think they've learned the lesson that we've taught them. For generations, we've rewarded them for their dependency, and they've used that positive reinforcement to carve out a way of life that is more dependency. It's our fault, not theirs. You can kill off the spirit of an entire people with your own naive good intensions. We've taken generations of adults and treated them like children. What you have left are people who can not only not take care of themselves, but they can't take care of their own children. It's a viscious cycle that we're just making worse. But hey, at least they have their Obama phones and can make all those important phone calls that unemployed people need to make to each other. Not to mention their cars, TVs, Xbox, air conditioning, Internet, computers ... you know, all those things that poor people need to survive.

Yeah, if you can't tell, my teeth aren't gnashing for them. I'm frustrated at what we've done to them, but I'm not buying into this myth that we should feel sorry for them. I've been poor. Dirt poor. Shitting-in-a-bucket-because-we-didn't-have-running-water poor. I know there is only one way out of poverty, and it's not through someone else's sympathy. Our "poor" are pampered, spoiled, and obese (i.e. over-fed). That's what "caring" produces. We can do better. Not with emotions and teeth-gnashing, but with our brains. We can look around and notice what works, and then use that experience to produce the same results elsewhere. It's not really a mystery what produces wealth. You don't have to take it. You can create it. There were no skyscraper-filled cities at one time. We didn't steal our skyscrapers from poor Africans. We invented them, and then went about building them. And they didn't rise on the power of moral teeth-gnashing. It actually took engineering, investment, and hard work. Like I said, it's not a mystery. We already know how to do it.

Many of us are not learning from this great experiment called history. There are positive results, and negative results. Let's do what works, instead of what we imagine might make us feel good.

We should never be giving aid to other countries in the first place. It is not our duty as a country to give money to other people. On a personal level, yes, giving money to charity to help those who are less fortunate is a great thing and should be encouraged; however, as an entity our government should not be in the business of charity--that is not the function of government.

Zarathustra wrote:There is no moral equivalence between ostensibly "letting" someone die because you don't give them your property, and murdering someone to take their stuff. I'm not morally responsible for people on the other side of the planet, no more than I'm responsible for aliens on another world. Keeping what I've earned and passing it on to my children is not "letting someone die." If it is, then every single one of us is guilty this very moment as we type on our luxury items (i.e. computers) instead of selling them to give money to the poor. This conversation would therefore justify our own murders.

That's an almost "Biblical" burden of guilt that I flat-out refuse to accept. It's a myth. I'm not guilty just because I was born in a rich country with advantages due to our system of government, our division of labor, our capital investment, etc. Anyone else can take advantage of these proven methods of improving your society. (As more and more people in fact are.)

This is always the correct response to any attempt at manipulation via guilt. My own Christian beliefs notwithstanding, even I do not believe this sort of guilt-tripping--I am responsible for my actions and living conditions, not the living conditions of other people. As noted, if I can help someone less fortunate then I will but I don't feel guilty for being in a better position to begin with.

peter wrote:Start with a 'Titanic' style situation where say an ocean liner founders and of the 1000 passengers there are lifeboats spaces for 200. So 200 people are sitting in the boats surrounded by 800 in the water whose one and only objective is to get into a boat by any means possible. It is beyond question that if permitted, the 800 will swamp the boats and result in the loss of all 1000 people and so with great regret and much wringing of hearts, the occupants put the oars and boat hooks to the only task that will save at least the 200 - they use them to drive away the unfortunates in the water so that at least some will survive.

One great disparity in this analogy is that on Life Boat Earth, you can probably put the 800 in the lifeboat if you take 50 people out of it. Because the ones who snagged a spot on the lifeboat are the ones who need the most room, while all the ones in the water really don't need that much. (Most of the resources of this planet are consumed by a few.)

Another great disparity with this analogy is that there was a time where everyone fit in the lifeboat. (There once were enough resources for everyone.)

So let me improve the analogy.

So if there was a limited amount of space on the lifeboat, would it be fair that the fattest people (which is the only thing that fits the analogy, sorry) get first dibs on the seats? Even if it means saving 200 instead of 950?

And would it be fair if those people got fat knowing all the while that they were condemning others to be pushed out of the lifeboat should it ever be needed, but didn't care because they knew that they themselves had secured their seats?

And yet..... to take this analogy a step further....

There are some sitting in the lifeboats (that are fat as well) that are railing against the other boats passengers but are not willing to give up their seat in their boat. All they have to do is to jump in the water and give their seat to those 4 others that would be saved but they instead say, I wont do it unless everyone does it.

wayfriend wrote:Another great disparity with this analogy is that there was a time where everyone fit in the lifeboat. (There once were enough resources for everyone.)

When was that, exactly? I want you to give me a date when there were more resources than we have today. There are enough resources for everyone today, btw. We're not running out; just the opposite. There's not a single date in the past you can point to when we had more resources "for everyone." If being "out of the lifeboat" means dying of hunger/poverty, then it's a simple fact that more people are getting on board than ever before. Our resources per capita have done nothing but expand. Despite the world population increasing, we've never had as much food or energy per person as we do now. And while those at the top are experiencing gains faster than those at the bottom, the bottom is seeing an historic, unprecedented rise in standard of living.

... the UN's latest development report published last week which stated that poverty reduction drives in the developing world were exceeding all expectations. It says: "The world is witnessing a epochal 'global rebalancing' with higher growth in at least 40 poor countries helping lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and into a new 'global middle class'. Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast."

link

Our lifeboat *is* the Titanic in this analogy (in the sense of being a luxury cruiseliner, not "doomed to sink") and it's only getting more luxurious. Sure, some people have to ride on the lower decks, but they're moving up. And we're rescuing many who were never on the boat to begin with. It's not like the entire human population has been riding on a luxury cruiseliner for all of its existence, until modern times made them jump off and then divide the liferafts. Poverty was humanity's starting point. There weren't even boats until we invented them (figurative or otherwise). And now more and more of us are not only floating to save our lives, we're riding in comfort and style.

There's no need to talk about pushing anyone off the lifeboat (no matter how "fat"), nor leaving some to drown. Why isn't anyone on the Left considering the possibility of everyone riding in luxury? Is it just beyond your imagination? It's happening, the trends are already going that direction. How can you not see it?

Put simply, the analogy is wrong because our boat is unlimited in size (for all practical purposes; see below)*, and unlimited in its ability to give everyone a 1st class ride. In no way is our situation on this planet anything like the lifeboat scenario as outlined in the OP, or any of the subsequent revisions. We do not have a resource problem on this planet. The problem is not that a few have "taken" too much for themselves (they earned, didn't take). The problem is that too many haven't produced/created enough. But that's changing! From the same link as above:

Some of the poorest people in the world are becoming significantly less poor, according to a groundbreaking academic study which has taken a new approach to measuring deprivation. The report, by Oxford University's poverty and human development initiative, predicts that countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within 20 years if they continue at present rates.

It identifies "star performer" nations such as Rwanda, Nepal and Bangladesh as places where deprivation could disappear within the lifetime of present generations. Close on their heels with reductions in poverty levels were Ghana, Tanzania, Cambodia and Bolivia.

wayfriend wrote:So if there was a limited amount of space on the lifeboat, would it be fair that the fattest people (which is the only thing that fits the analogy, sorry) get first dibs on the seats? Even if it means saving 200 instead of 950?

Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's kick off the very people who have the money and knowledge to build more lifeboats ... the ones who built all the boats to begin with.


*(Birth rates drop off as people become wealthier so our population will stabilize long before we run out of physical room.)

I agree, Vraith, mixed economy capitalism is the better option as I see it at the moment.

Z, I was putting together a big post rebutting your arguments, but when I started to look at things like peak oil, raw materials shortages and so on I found that our 'resourcefulness' has changed the balance of these things since I last checked (a good while back obviously ). So, your argument that the earth could sustain 100million people doesn't seems as ludicrous as I first thought.

I don't want to shift the argument by starting to talk about environmental issues, so I guess that I'll have to admit that, as it currently stands, the Lifeboat Earth idea is more of an exercise in applied ethics than relevant to our actual circumstances.

And in relation to our responsibility to people currently outside the 'lifeboat' I have changed my position over the years and come to see it as a personal issue rather than any sort of obligation. Personally I don't contribute much to overseas causes, and I no longer experience the sort of guilt that that might have once caused me (I was raised a Catholic, after all ).

I would still hold that the West appropriated the natural resources of poorer countries through imperialism and colonialism (e.g. most of Ireland's mature forests were felled during the 1700's for English shipbuilding) and then used their subsequent position of power to continue extracting resources at a rate far below their actual value.*

I won't get into the issue of welfare as we have dealt with that many times in the 'Tank and I'll also refer people again to the link I put in a post upthread as I think it captures the essence of the ethical exercise (even if it may not apply to our current circumstances): Luck, duty and benevolence.

u.

* I recognise that there is a transfer of technology and investment into those countries, but this also often comes at the price of opening up markets which can lead to the suppression of native industries and then to further problems like IMF and World Bank restructuring programs.

The point that 'limited rescources' has to apply to resource levels as they currently stand has been amply made above and also that the analogy fails to take into account that we [humans] are active participants in the situation and will not sit idley by while the situation worsens. U. above touches on [but does not persue] the issue of the ecological impact of raising the energy consumption levels of vast numbers of 'poorer' individuals [for that indeed is what being lifted out of poverty currently entails] in the face of a world perhaps already showing signs of strain at the burdens being placed on it's ability to maintain a stable [ie life sustaining] environment.

Z's point that world poverty is on the decrease [absolute rather than relative that is] is no doubt true and is probably why, rather than concentrating on poverty the World Economic Forum has chosen 'severe income disparity' [which it see's as one of the most prevalent risks run by the global economy] as the theme of it's current [or just completed] meeting at Davos. Oxfam have thrown in their 'pen'o'worth' by revealing that the 85 richest people on the planet now own between them more wealth than the total owned by the bottom 50% of the worlds population. {Not sure what the significance of this is other than as a 'shock value' input}. But is 'inequality' really the point - I'm not so sure. Sure it's a piss off to see your neighbour driving around in a better car than you, but this to me seems to be one of the driving factors that will make a man/woman suceed. The key thing is that people have the security of health, education, abode and nutririon [together with of course freedom from oppressionand fear of persecution] as the base line from which to start from. Over and above this where does inequality come into it?

peter wrote: The key thing is that people have the security of health, education, abode and nutririon [together with of course freedom from oppressionand fear of persecution] as the base line from which to start from. Over and above this where does inequality come into it?

Extreme inequality comes into it by attacking/destroying the baseline you want everything to be over and above.
I'd say inequality is why despite the fact that we pay people to not produce food, despite the fact we pay people to produce really expensive/intensive foods, despite the fact we reallocate food-production potential into other production [ethanol, anyone? seriously?], we STILL manage to produce enough food to feed around 10 Billion people. We only HAVE 7 billion people. Yet people are still starving.
Inequality is the cause of that.

[inequality is complex and is correlated with or a cause in a host of other ways...some practical, some as much physics as anything else, some non-rational, and some irrational.]

I thought 'limited resources' was a premise of the hypothetical question. Call me stupid I guess, but I went along with it.

I mentioned 'inequality of consumption' because Lifeboat Earth can support the most people when it is the people who consume the least. I would have thought that saving the most people would be a good idea.

But this was countered by the notion of 'inequality of value to society'. We shouldn't save the most people on our Lifeboat, we should save the best people. And what better way to identify the best people than by their bank accounts?

Equating 'having the most money' with 'having the most value to society' is a very significant argument to have. I don't fly along those lines myself -- I've seen too many valuable people who make a modest living, and too many leeches and criminals with lots of wealth. But Ayn Rand has lots of subscribers - there will always be people who equate having wealth with service to mankind. The moral excuse for plutocracy.

So: poor people are worthless. "Might Makes Right" is so much more palatable when you have a plausible morality to back it up.

wayfriend wrote: But this was countered by the notion of 'inequality of value to society'. We shouldn't save the most people on our Lifeboat, we should save the best people. And what better way to identify the best people than by their bank accounts?

Money is irrelevant. In a lifeboat situation you try to save everyone you can--children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the infirm are given priority seating on the lifeboats while those who are reasonably strong swimmers get to hang on to the side.

The better yardstick against which to measure people, if you are forced to do such a thing, is their skill set, if considering "whom do we save to ensure the future of the planet?". Person A might not have an advanced education but they are a good blacksmith, a skilled hunter, a bowyer/fletcher, or something else equally useful means take them along. Person B is a financial manager and a CPA with 20 years of experience and a proven track record of managing assets wisely to grow wealth? Dump person B unless they have something else to bring to the table.

This is all sophistry in any event. Past experience proves that in an emergency situation the vast majority of people revert to the mentality of "me first and screw everyone else".

Sorry Wayfriend - that was probably me that derailed my own thread [well, not mine but you know what I mean].

It seems that the 'lifeboat earth' thing deals mainly with consumption of finite resources set against population increase, but does not [in it's stated form at least] adress the effect of the consumption by ever larger numbers of people and the resulting environmental damage [which at the end, baring say the rapid development of mega-clean energy production, is going to be the real issue at stake]. The 'inequality issue' seems tied in there somewhere. From V.s post it would seem that inequality is at least in part an 'organisational' problem as well as a 'greed' based one. But I'm guessing that inequality would be found in all societies, no matter what their heirarchical/political/societal structure; we may all be born equal in the 'eyes of God' but thats where it ends.