so the key thing that longtermism does is it assumes you believe in utilitarianism (trolley problems and that sort of thing, the idea that one person's life can be quantitatively compared to another's)
and then it throws around big numbers to get you to do a divide-by-zero in your moral reasoning, resulting in absurd conclusions
sometimes by coincidence it arrives at a conclusion we agree with
but the process by which it gets there is not a good one
you don't have to accept an entire belief system just because its followers tell you a thing you want to hear one time
it is okay - in fact, really important, in our personal view - to do your own process of seeking to discover your moral beliefs and improve them by studying the real effects those beliefs have on the world
don't skip that last part. you have to be able to compare it to reality, it has to be grounded in that.
thought experiments that create fundamentally impossible situations, or that ask you to focus on only one tiny aspect of a larger problem, are suspect because you can't compare them to reality easily
if trolley problems feel like impossible choices that nobody should have to make
you should probably tell your city council to make sure all the train crossings have full grade separation
it's dramatically safer, this is well studied
you only face a last-second decision about what to do with the brakes if everyone up to that point has been profoundly negligent in their ethics
@ireneista my, I think favorite, realer variant of trolley problem is using coal to heat your home in a city. It pits you and family not being extremely cold against small increase in suffering/chance of earlier disability to all people in the city (via dust pollution).
