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Shae comments on A Much Better Life? - Less Wrong
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I agree - I think the original post is accurate in what people would respond to the suggestion, in abstract, but the actual implementation would undoubtedly hook vast swathes of the population. We live in a world where people already become addicted to vastly inferior simulations such as WoW already.
I disagree. I think that even the average long-term tortured prisoner would balk and resist if you walked up to him with this machine. In fact, I think fewer people would accept in real life than those who claim they would, in conversations like these.
The resistance may in fact reveal an inability to properly conceptualize the machine working, or it may not. As others have said, maybe you don't want to do something you think is wrong (like abandoning your relatives or being unproductive) even if later you're guaranteed to forget all about it and live in bliss. What if the machine ran on tortured animals? Or tortured humans that you don't know? That shouldn't bother you any more than if it didn't, if all that matters is how you feel once you're hooked up.
We have some present-day corrolaries. What about a lobotomy, or suicide? Even if these can be shown to be a guaranteed escape from unhappiness or neuroses, most people aren't interested, including some really unhappy people.
I think the average long-term tortured prisoner would be desperate for any option that's not "get tortured more", considering that real torture victims will confess to crimes that carry the death penalty if they think this will make the torturer stop. Or, for that matter, crimes that carry the torture penalty, IIRC.