Jonathan_Graehl comments on Utilons vs. Hedons - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Psychohistorian 10 August 2009 07:20PM

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Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 10 August 2009 08:05:06PM *  6 points [-]

I suspect we already indirectly, incrementally cause the death of unknown persons in order to accumulate personal wealth and pleasure. Consider goods produced in factories causing air and water contamination affecting incumbent farmers. While I'd like to punish those goods' producers by buying alternatives, it's apparently not worth my time*.

Probably, faced with the requirement to directly and completely cause a death, we would feel wrong enough about this (even with a promise of memory-wipe) to desist. But I find it difficult to consider such a situation honestly when I'm so strongly driven to signal pervasively (even to myself) that I am not an evil person. Perhaps a sufficiently anonymous poll could give us a better indication of what people would actually do.

There are certainly scenarios where under average utility maximization, you'd want to kill innocent people - draw lots if you like, but there's only enough air for 3 of us to survive the return trip from Mars.

* And maybe the economic benefit to the producing region is greater than the harm to the backyarders, and they just need to spend more in compensating or protecting them. But I believe there are some unambiguous cases where I ought to avoid consuming said product at the very least.

Comment author: matt 12 August 2009 02:50:30AM *  2 points [-]

In general industrialized economies have better health, lifespan, standard of living and etc. You seem to be paying attention only to the negative side effects of your manufactured goods.

(That graph is not proof. Correlation is not causation. This is a short comment that makes a small point. Go easy on me.)

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 12 August 2009 06:22:20AM 0 points [-]

Yes, but I acknowledged that possibility in my asterisk turned bullet point (thanks, markup).

Comment author: Cyan 12 August 2009 12:25:47PM *  1 point [-]

To get the asterisk back, use " \* " instead of " * ".