>He seems to be saying that you can’t successfully change a whole economic system in a way that clashes with human nature but you might be able to work within in it to alleviate the problems.

It is kind of a ridiculous way of thinking on Singer's part, though. He suggests that our current system of capitalism can't be changed, though it's only 250 years old and came into being exactly as a change in economic system that no one thought could change.

So he suggests instead charity, which has been around for thousands of years and has yet to solve poverty.

If anything, a change in the economic system is more frequent (a few times in recorded history) than charity's ability to solve poverty (thousands of years, still no success). Yet he claims that the latter is more likely to work?

That's not true that his only focus is on individual actions though. In his Animal Liberation, there's a whole section of the book where he talks about the mostly unnecessary cruelty of Animal Experimentation, and how it should be solved by advocacy and changing the laws. The Effective Altruism movement for with Singer is considered to be somewhat of an ideological father, uses advocacy, grassroots movements, lobbying, etc in a variety of issues.

However, in some issues individual action can be the best way. Some issues, like Veganism for example that Singer is an advocate of, do not have enough public support at this point to change laws and policies. Same with poverty alleviation. I'm sure pretty much everybody in the movement would be happy to see countries give foreign aid in the forms that have been shown to be effective. However countries generally see foreign aid as a tool to buy influence and that's unlikely to change soon.

Maybe time for some people to read some Franz Fanon about some other options besides charity. I’ve completely oversimplified this, of course.

God is supposed to be the first cause so it should always be transcendent, or it isn't God, but I imagine it's also of this world since it's supposed to be omnipresent.

Explain why the argument doesn't work if it's immanent. Is the idea that if God is all things of reality then God is also in all evil things? I've considered this before. Is this what you mean?

We have a mountain of evidence to suggest that we're living in an era of extreme temporary abundance permitted by mortgaging potentially the entire future of the species, with wealth inequality reaching nearly-unprecedented levels, while we're also losing a race to keep the general population educated enough to not slip into a new Dark Age of superstition.

You can lay a shitload of that at capitalism's feet. Isn't it perfectly poetic? Capitalism is all about the next quarter's profits and/or growth. Right up until this evidence started to seriously accrue, your comment seemed incredibly "post undergraduate." Now, not so much. Now it seems like capitalism trying to defend itself by focusing on absolutely nothing except a very specific set of numbers from this particular snapshot.

>If you think humans aren't privileged in relation to all other life on earth in this context then it's OK to destroy humans for your benefit the same way it's OK to destroy other things for your benefit - since it's all the same, right?

Maybe it's not OK to destroy anything for our benefit? That way - yes, it's all the same.

>The reason these kinds of statements are empty platitudes is because people like Singer aren't saying individuals should be
>
>required
>
>to alleviate the world's poverty, through enforceable laws or policies, but rather they should
>
>choose
>
>to alleviate the world's poverty, freely, which of course many won't do

Lawmakers are people too.

Acts to vote for new laws are acts just like following those laws are acts and like doing charity despite the absence of such laws are acts as well.

Rule utilitarianism is the default unless explicitly stated otherwise. Because you would need to justify why of all possible actions, those who consist of establishing rules should be set out of scope. They are just actions that need to be assessed by their expected consequences, like all other actions.

Also, what do you do in a system that regularly generates incentives to NOT give to charity? I'm not against charity, but to propose it as a systemic way to address poverty is ridiculous.

If a cow was simply grazing a field a leaving dung piles then there would be a net loss of resources, no? They're just eating the grass, stealing half of it's nutrients and pooping half of it back. You need to kill the cow to get 100% again, right?

I'm just curious

You're making a lot of assumptions about Singer's would-be critics.

The alternative to charity isn't necessarily throwing soup cans at priceless art, and to suggest that is to provide a pretty unsympathetic view of the critic.

Charity itself is a luxury of sorts, and not everyone can participate.

Also, while some critics of capitalism or of Singer (or both) might be petty tyrants and dogmatically committed to some purity test, there's no reason why that's necessarily the case. There are conceptions of alternative systems that are nonetheless pluralistic, and to suggest that these don't exist is to be intellectually dishonest.

Nor do we have any reason to believe that there's a democratic consensus around the status quo, or that the status quo somehow conforms better to "human nature," whatever that may be.

I'm not sure why OP is getting downvoted for making such an uncontroversial point.

Sure, there are aspects of capitalism that are undesirable. But let's not forget that capitalism has also done far more to solve poverty than it has to create it.

If we want to come up with solutions, we at least need to be honest about the problem we're trying to solve.

>Peter Singer argues that individuals should do more to alleviate the world’s poverty

The reason these kinds of statements are empty platitudes is because people like Singer aren't saying individuals should be required to alleviate the world's poverty, through enforceable laws or policies, but rather they should choose to alleviate the world's poverty, freely, which of course many won't do. In the subtext of normative statements like these from liberal, utilitarian thinkers is the absence of enforcement. Enforcement of social norms and moral values (like, one should not hoard wealth and resources at the expense of others) throughout a society or culture is illiberal, as it necessarily means the limiting of individual freedoms and rights, like the right to property and wealth accumulation.

For all the potential dangers that social media create, perhaps it is our last, best hope.

Attempts at underlying change in the past failed. The ability of the greedy individual to concentrate power repeatedly thwarted even the best of initiatives.

Social media has the potential, only the potential of course, to create a vehicle to coordinate a very large number of minds and skills in the interest of the widest possible cooperation.

I propose a grass-roots Universal Moral Framework controlled by everybody and nobody. ESG seems to be a sham, a system of fences run by the foxes to protect the chickens.

It is a little difficult to be optimistic about this suggestion, but I can think of no better.

Great, we all get to buy more stupid shit at the cost of the planet.

> an undergraduate student raised the question of the material cause of poverty, that is, capitalist accumulation.

A very undergraduate thought. People live materially better lives now than at any previous time in history. The amount of extreme poverty worldwide is steadily going down, not just as a percentage but in absolute numbers. We live in the first historical era in which more people die from eating too much than from eating too little.

We live in an age of extreme abundance. Yes poverty is still a problem, but blaming it on "capitalism" is just about the most insipid thing ever.

It sometimes seems easier to say ‘something must be done’ than come up with concrete individual actions. It’s arguable whether throwing soup at a painting has more practical effect than helping others through charity. Obviously it sends what specific problems you seek to alleviate. And saying that is not the equivalent of saying we should do nothing.

The problem with ‘overthrow the whole system and put in my ideologically pure alternative’ is that it tends to be undemocratic ( but for their own good because they are too stupid, evil or brainwashed to know what good for them of course) and all ideologies tend to have unintended consequences when faced with real life that may be worse than the one overthrown (and often the intended methods are morally suspect.) We undoubtedly should be far more sceptical about capitalism and no doubt there is much that should be done to reform it, but we should treat exhortations to overthrow it with the same scepticism.

Also I’d point out that Singer claiming human nature is not as pliable as Marx believed doesn’t seem to be the same as saying it’s entirely fixed so his argument for manageable personal action is not really contradictory in substance despite the mention of fashion. He seems to be saying that you can’t successfully change a whole economic system in a way that clashes with human nature but you might be able to work within in it to alleviate the problems.

Yes, the ability to be in specific, to imagine.

If I make a mimic - like human. It must be programmed to do auto random stuffs. I think by so many iterations it can make human like results. But not like humans.

If then else for the functions. Then random act or crunching knowledge to make something new.

Creativity, probably is the highest for our level.

I was saying that also calculators can do that, but calculators in reality work on a "if this combination, then do this" system, unlike humans.

Not wrong. I think what separates use from AI is the ability to imagine and act on those. The ability to think; therefore I am.

A byproduct of evolution. By our ability to mix and match what we experience. I think in a way, the idea came about.

Also based on what we talk, I guess imagination of something new, not just recall; is another free will ability.

Any fool with a mirror can see into the future. Any fool with a gun can kill. Any fool with a tool can farm. Any fool with a broom can clean. Any fool with a job can pay taxes. Any fool with two hands can lift. Any fool with two legs can run. But most fools choose not to. Any fool with a brain can be a pawn. Any fool dumb enough to be a fool Can be a fool. A fool will seek power in the wrong places. A fool will seek love in a whore house. A fool will seek imortality among mortals. A fool will find death where he didnt seek.

Not wrong. I guess the brain also does all things we know are automatic, heart, breathing, blood flow, etc., Organs. And the part where we try to exert our conscious behavior is left for the dependent one.

Because chemicals interact causing us to do stuff, and we act a few seconds later and all we perceive in a way as present is really the past.

And I will concede that. But the real question is how far should a moral code affect? A group? A species? or all the animals? or somewhere in between? These questions are completely and painfully subjective, and cause us to align the answer with our personal preference.

Neuroscientist here, This line of reasoning is not contentious at all. We are the only species that in a short amount of time (evolution terms) changed so drastically and it is generally agreed upon that it is because we learned to hunt and cook meat, extracting way more calories from that. That also cleared out schedule enough to be more social and inventive.

No other animal cooks meat.

After thousands of years of evolution eating meat and relying on it for many vitamins and minerals it is not so simple to remove it entirely without consequences. Plant protein, and some vitamins and minerals do net get absorbed efficiently. Studies have shown the possibilities of health issues. That sound like a moral argument to me. harm to animals Vs. harm to self.

I came to the conclusion that our brain Is similar to the holy Roman empire: each part of the brain vaguely recognizes the power of the mind (the mind only directly controls a small part of the brain), but a big part of the brain Is actually highly indipendent.