There are vast tragedies happening right now that we are failing to see

There are transparent monsters in the world. Transparent monsters are tragedies of vast proportions that only very few people can recognize. History is filled with examples of such tragedies, and our time is probably no different. You can support us on:

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Some further readings:

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[RationalAnimations]

One important thing that I haven't included in the video, but that follows from it is that sometimes you'll hear someone expressing ideas that sound utterly crazy but that, in the end, turn out to be correct. This is true in many contexts, among which is ethics. Most of the seemingly crazy people are probably wrong. Still, there's a minority, perhaps significant enough, who's right. In the case of ethics, by "right, " I mean: "upon further reflection, other people would come to the same conclusion, and that conclusion will be adopted by future humanity" (I hope this captures what I mean, if not I hope you get the idea). Note that this is independent of the moral realism vs. anti-realism debate. After realizing this, I have become way less dismissive of crazy-sounding ideas, and I try to consider them for a while instead of discarding them outright. P.S. When reading comments, you can assume it's the scriptwriter who's writing. As always, you can support us on:

[lordtrees]

Wow I can't believe I stumbled across this gem of a YouTube channel in it's infancy.

[khenricx]

In this video, there's also the assumption that reducing suffering is the moral goal of humanity.
And while humanity kind of want to follow this goal right now, it is not the only one. For example, by killing everyone and everything on Earth painlessly, we would end suffering forever. We could also do that by puting everyone in a cage and druging everyone into an ecstatic state. Obviously this is not an outcome that most of us want. It means There's also other moral goals. The maximisation of one's liberty, or the right for every being to not be killed for example.And these moral goals can sometime be incompatible.
We can't both control natural predation to prevent death and suffering, and protect the animals liberty, as control is opposed to liberty.
The invisible monsters only exist when a moral goal shifts or reinforce itself, but it's hard to know which moral goal will be pursued next.

[chadjones]

It's amazing how much "moral"people can be when technology makes their lives easier.

[jd]

I'm reminded of the little boy who pointed out that the emperor wears no clothes. Many people like to imagine that they would do the same. In reality, they would be part of the frenzied crowd that lynches the boy for daring to speak. Then everyone would carry on exactly the same as before.

[sethsoarenson]

I'm worried that anyone who wants to can see the monsters, they just find them to be good, angels instead of demons. Aristotle in the quote recognized the monster and proclaimed it natural and expedient.

My great worry is that all monsters are only slain when a more convenient, expedient solution is present for a ruling class. And this, in turn, makes me worry that monsters are only ever slain by larger monsters.

[canaldoxerxes]

Humm... yeah about that. Morals do not necessarily progress with time. For now, it worked like that. But it's not obvious or expected that our morals will be "better" in 40 thousand years into the future.

[Pengalen]

A huge thing you're missing in the Aristotle quote on slavery is that, by his definition, anyone who is not a capitalist (owner of a significant amount of productive property) in the current western world is a slave (which I would tend to agree with), ipso facto slavery has not been abolished . So you have to consider not only different concepts of virtue, but concepts of slavery as well. The Anglosphere began abolition of a certain kind of slavery in the 19th century, but did not abolish slavery (per Aristotle) at all, as it remains (per you, Rational Animations) invisible.

[XetXetable]

There's an implicit assumption in this video that the only thing morality should ever consider is suffering; that is, morality is based on care and harm and if you justify harming another being then they are outside the consideration of morality. But that's not how morality works. Different people will have different intuitions about moral behavior, and much of it has nothing to do with care or harm. For some, loyalty is the highest consideration, and it's impossible for such a person to value animals that can't be loyal. That's not because they are beyond consideration, but because, once considered, it becomes clear they can't matter. Similar things can be said about people whose intuitions are dominated by duty, family, property, freedom, or sanctity. Even if our circle encompassed everything, such overriding concerns would lead to completely different places than solely considering care or harm.

I'm not confident that future humanity will only care about care and harm. If transhumans become anything great, like unto a civilization but as an individual, then they will become sufficiently self-sufficient that they would only interact with society if they want to. For such a creature, I would expect its moral considerations to be dominated by either loyalty to some in-group or by freedom/independence from authority. Then again, morality exists for the sake of society, not the individual. If societies become unnecessary then I'm not sure morality will be widely considered at all.

[SuperAlphaKirby]

I had seen the invisible monster of the terrible treatment of insects for no reason in general. Like my peers casually stomping on insects, or mother's slapping cockroaches who were just chilling in their homes. Since then i have been super compassionate towards insects.

[ValentineBondar]

The problem with idea-based directions (I.e. reducing suffering for humanity) is that it often goes too far and becomes a pursuit in its own right

[AKAThatKid]

"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains" - Rosa Luxemburg

[orthoplex]

Examples that came to mind:
- Leaded gasoline everywhere (unseen, then ignored, now slain)
- Fetal alcohol syndrome (not fully recognized; still a huge problem)
- Manual driving (causes lots of avoidable crashes)
- Female genital mutilation (extremely prevalent in many countries)

[sulli]

Something to note that makes slavery a good example is that we have control whether or not someone is treated and thusly categorized as a slave. So when pointing out other monsters it's important to identify the same categorization issue because without it, it can easily be deferred that population suppression and outright eradication could be a grace just as it's been justified in the past.

[Baekstrom]

I can point to one transparent monster that seems all too opaque to me: Wage slavery. The idea that basic food and housing for most people is contingent on them selling hours of their lives, often to produce goods that the world would be just fine without, seems preposterous to me.

[os]

Awesome. Btw I’m a neurobiologist studying multimodal integration in the nervous system and behavior of honey bees 🐝 and bumble bees 🐝… your video is an ethical justification for my work … love it!

[Swashplate]

I'm always impressed and brought to a state of introspection when experiencing your scriptwriting ability. Truly. Stimulating depth of thought and truly inspiring.

[XzoahX]

Ok. But what about when the bigger monsters *do* exist?

No one wants Godzilla stomping around in their city. But sometimes he's the only thing that can stop Ghidorah.

[JD-jlyy]

Animal suffering and taking future generations morally into consideration are probably two huge transparent monsters that are walking around right now, but I really wonder what else we are being blind to...

Unknown unknown's are a frightening thing.

[mirkomeyerhoff]

The evils of slavery didn't "become visible" to all of humanity – its abolition was forced upon the rest of humanity by Europeans, British first, other European nations later.