“A Million Is Made Out Of A Million Ones” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Maybe my favorite quote ever is from a recent Scott Alexander article, but in order to explain it, I will have to provide some context.

Scott's recent piece, My Heart of Hearts, is broadly about why we should value ethical consistency. In it, he described his emotional reaction to the Gaza conflict in the following way:

A few months ago, I read an article by an aid worker in Gaza recounting the horrors he’d seen. Among a long litany, one stood out. A little kid came into the hospital with a backpack. The doctors told him he had to put it down so they could treat him, and he refused. The doctors insisted. The kid fought back. Finally someone opened the bag. It was some body part fragments from the kid's dead brother. He couldn’t bear to leave him, so he carried them everywhere he went.

I am a [...]

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First published:
August 8th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gxKJqYF8SKNFHYFZn/a-million-is-made-out-of-a-million-ones

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.