Billy Bragg, Wilco, and Natalie Merchant: "Birds and Ships"
Freakonomics has talked a fair amount about Adam Smith (1, 2, 3) and I recently borrowed Russ Roberts' book, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life (page below). Both talk about Smith's comment along the lines that the average person cares more about his little finger than the deaths of a million people in China.
I don't think this is all that fair or illustrative.
The question most of us deal with is: What can I do about it? (OTOH, some "Effective" Altruists would rather talk about stuff than actually do something.)
If told, "Shoot a million people in the head while looking them in the eye or we'll cut off your little finger," most people would lose their little finger. And many people would sacrifice their little finger if it would save a million people from an untimely death.
Over 150,000 humans die every single day. (I can't find a good estimate of how many sentient non-humans die every day.) It is unlikely that many, if any, of those human deaths are great. (For many non-human animals, they are better off dead.) And that doesn't begin to touch on all the individuals suffering terribly.
We simply cannot take on all misery and death. It is just not possible. Taking on even an infinitesimal fraction would leave us paralyzed with grief, and thus unable to make a difference for anyone.
It doesn't matter what we know or how "good" we are. What matters is who we help. And helping anyone means making hard choices. And this:
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