Peter_de_Blanc comments on Revisiting torture vs. dust specks - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 08 July 2009 11:04AM

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Comment author: Peter_de_Blanc 09 July 2009 07:17:48AM 0 points [-]

By the same argument (i.e. refusing to multiply), wouldn't it also be better to torture 100 people for 49 years than to torture one person for 50 years?

Comment author: Alicorn 09 July 2009 03:08:46PM 2 points [-]

I did say:

I haven't yet worked out a good way to draw the line in the escalation scenario, since I suspect that "whatever level of discomfort I, personally, wouldn't voluntarily experience to save some random person from 50 years of torture" is unlikely to be the right answer.

The scenario you present is among those I have no suitable answer for for this reason. However, I lean towards preferring the 50 years of torture for 1 person over 49 years for 100.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 09 July 2009 10:17:00AM 2 points [-]

Not if each of them considers it a wrong choice. Refusing to multiply goes both ways, and no math can debate this choice: whatever thought experiment you present, an intuitive response would be stumped on top and given as a reply.

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