Humankind isn’t just some abstraction. To love humanity, you must start by loving individual persons, by fulfilling your responsibility to those you love.
I thought of this earlier post (below) when I heard about a protest demanding both climate action and "Free Palestine." Why not add in mandatory raw veganism and full dismantling the Department of Defense? And a free unicorn for everyone?
For more on the climate movement (in addition to my comments in Losing) please see The Implosion of the Climate Left.
Once upon a time, some animal exploiter tried to convince an unstable person to plan a (thwarted) terrorist attack in order to make animal advocates look bad.
This comes to mind whenever I see people supposedly concerned with making the world a better place doing things beyond absurd. I wonder: are they infiltrators trying to discredit actual dedicated advocates? Or are they simply unhinged people without any connection to reality?
In this case, the person is unhinged - don't wash to save mites that live on you. OK, fine, the "Effective" Altruism community wants to allow weird brainstorming, even about non-sentient "wild" animals.
But whoever compiles the "best of" EA posts for the weekly newsletter actively chose to highlight and promote this insanity.
Our is a world where countless fully-conscious human beings are actually and acutely suffering - including many individuals who are being tortured. Parents losing their five-year-old after a two-year battle with childhood leukemia. A teenager paralyzed by crushing anxiety. A new mother killed by a drunk driver, leaving behind a howlingly-despairing husband and infant. A political prisoner driven mad in solitary confinement.
And yet, in this world, the Effective Altruism community choses to promote concern for non-sentient invisible mites that literally feed on us.
<sigh>
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