Kids In My Ponds
Inspired by this LessWrong post.
30-year-old John Smith was taking a leisurely stroll during his break from work when, horrors, he saw a child drowning in a pond. He was tall enough and the pond was shallow enough that rescuing the child was no danger to him. But it would ruin his business suit and his dress shoes. Nevertheless, he jumped in. Then he returned to his workplace, where he presented a sales report to AT Corp, a potential client. AT Corp decided not to retain the business’s services, and John discussed the situation with his boss.
“John, I’ve known you for eight years and in that time you’ve been nothing but reliable. So if you say your clothes are wet because you were saving a drowning child, I believe you 100%. But the men at AT Corp, well, they say they believe. They say they understand and 100% agree that saving the child was the right decision. But I could tell they didn't really believe you and I could swear I overheard one of them saying, ‘they’re running a clown show over here.’”
“There were other people at that lake, I recognized some of them and know where they live. I can get them to back up the story.”
“That’s great and all, but if I tell AT Corp I think they’re lying to me when they say they believe you, that’s me being disrespectful to them. So we can’t do that.”
Eight-year-old me was right, John thought. Adult social norms really are crazy.
“So,” continued the boss, “while I commend your altruism, I would advise you to forgo your daily walk tomorrow.”
***
John knew that to forgo the walk would be unethical. He could not let the child die. Again he rescued the child, again he faced his boss, who was now quite angry.
“Hey, here’s an idea,” John said. “How about we stop spending money on expensive business suits, dry cleaning, etc, and wear t-shirts we got from Wal-Mart? We use the money to hire professional swimmers to rescue all the children from all the ponds. We convince all other firms to do it too. Some will resist, but instead of looking ‘high-class,’ they’ll soon look uncharitable. Social pressure for it will be replaced by social pressure against it.”
“That sounds great in theory. But consider the problem. There’s no way to ensure compliance. AT Club could claim it’s donating the money saved to the lifeguard fund, but there would be no way to know if they’re doing that or just pocketing the surplus.”
“Darn.”
***
By the third day, John was MAD as he dragged the kid out of the pond. All these other people just walk on by. I’m the more moral person and yet it feels like I’m being PUNISHED. Whatever happened to that “karma” thing?
As he walked back to his office, he decided to stop by a solicitor he had ignored the previous two days.
“I see you’re suffering child-in-the-pond problems,” said the young, pretty saleswoman. “With this one weird trick, I can take that burden off your shoulders. Only 5$.”
Oh, what the hell, thought John. He paid the money.
“You see, actually, your actions in rescuing the children are counterproductive. You see, the area the pond is located in is overpopulated. By rescuing the children, you’re making the overpopulation problem worse and causing even more suffering.”
“Brilliant!” yelled John.
***
By the fourth day, there were two children in the pond and John, wet and cold as ever, was desperate for an explanation. He found a development economist by the shore, who explained the issue.
“You see,” the economist explained, “poverty leads to higher rates of population growth because the poorest people lack access to contraception. Withdrawing aid in order to not exacerbate overpopulation will have the opposite effect. Thankfully, I work for an NGO that provides contraception for free. A box of condoms is a trivial expense for you, and so even a small donation can make a real difference.”
John made the donation and hoped it would be his last.
***
By the fifth day, there were four drowning children in the shallow pond. This time John found the child he had rescued the first day sitting by the pond. He asked the child if he was familiar with the NGO. Were they a scam?
“No, they are legit. They really do distribute free birth control. But there aren’t many takers. You see, if your NGO man had bothered to ask us, he’d know that we want to have six children per family. Men and women both. Not everyone wants to be a childless intellectual who spends his days reading Marx and purports to have a complicated sex life.”
***
By the sixth day, John encountered another likely grifter offering to solve his problems in return for a trivial sum, this time with wiry hair and crazy eyes and some kind of supervillain costume.
“I have developed a way to sterilize the children in the pond at minimal cost to you.”
“They’re not going to go for that.”
“My plan doesn’t involve asking them for permission.”
“That’s horrible! Outrageous!”
“Is it really? Yes, they have preferences and I’m proposing to override their preferences. But their minds are stunted by ignorance and religious fanaticism. You know it just as much as I, to have children in such conditions of poverty is a profoundly irresponsible act. Come on, I’m only asking for 10 bucks.”
“No thanks!”
***
On day seven, John decided to ask the disheveled homeless man camping by the lake for his opinion. In ancient India, people thought elderly beggars had some kind of connection with the divine that imparted some kind of wisdom. As far as John knew they were all stupid and crazy. He explained the supervillain’s argument and the homeless man snorted.
“The mistake you guys make is to only focus on the drowning. The drowning sucks, sure. But most of their lives aren’t spent drowning. Think back to your own childhood; you could have a lot of fun with just some sticks and rocks, remember? Hedonic adaption, man. Everyone thinks they’d kill themselves if they were in my shoes, but I can assure you I very much want to go on living. There’s a lot of fun in the whiskey bottle. By total utilitarianism, my life adds value to the world.”
***
On day eight, John saw no kids drowning, as someone had built a fence around the lake.
John asked a policeman what had happened.
“Yeah, they put this in this mourning,” the policeman said.
“Amazing, why didn’t I think of that?” John asked.
“The idea had been around for a long time. But it was a pretty difficult engineering challenge and the powers that be didn’t put much money into it. But it’s good that we’ve resolved that moral paradox.”
“How can you say we’ve resolved it?”
“Well, the conclusion that we are obligated to jump in the lake is the conclusion we feel we 'should' accept, right? And now we can do so at no cost to ourselves.”