I did some fun things with my kids when they were small. Two years later they did not remember a thing. I was hurt a little, but I don’t think that the effort was wasted. Human life is finite anyway; a happy day and a happy lifetime is just a difference in magnitude.
Of course we should select the greater good. But the calculation is less obvious when you include the certainty of impact (which is relatively high for short-term things, and low for long-term things). Plus there is a possible effect of “they do not remember it, but it made a long-term impact anyway”, for example they no longer remember the thing that got them interested in doing X, but they still keep doing X.
I did some fun things with my kids when they were small. Two years later they did not remember a thing. I was hurt a little, but I don’t think that the effort was wasted. Human life is finite anyway; a happy day and a happy lifetime is just a difference in magnitude.
Of course we should select the greater good. But the calculation is less obvious when you include the certainty of impact (which is relatively high for short-term things, and low for long-term things). Plus there is a possible effect of “they do not remember it, but it made a long-term impact anyway”, for example they no longer remember the thing that got them interested in doing X, but they still keep doing X.