Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio.
This is: Creepy Crawlies (an EA poem), published by MHarris on the effective altruism forum.
Does an incy wincy spider
Have an incy wincy brain,
With incy wincy feelings,
And incy wincy pain?
Do all the creepy crawlies
Climbing up the water spout
Count for nothing, or for everything?
What a crazy thing to doubt!
If I can't know for certain
What it's like to be a bat,
How can I hope to understand
The troubles of a gnat?
If, though I know, I think, I am,
I guess at what you are,
Then I must know my limits
Empathy can't go so far.
Some day we'll have the answers,
Or at least we'll know much more,
And, in the meantime, muddle on.
We'll do our best, I'm sure.
We'll be wild geese, and better yet,
We'll grow in what we can.
But, in the mean time, barely know
Enough to help our fellow man.
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