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MrHen comments on Shut Up and Divide? - Less Wrong
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Okay... this makes some sense. I had to work it out like this before I understood it:
But I don't really think this addresses the problem. In this scenario, whoever bought the stuff my employer sold just killed a bunch of people. So... my original question gets changed to:
Obviously this is simplifying economy and labor and yada, yada. We could go into more detail, but unless you think the answer lies in those details I would rather not.
They almost certainly would have anyway. I really don't see why this matters. You're (presumably) not trying to minimize aggregate sinfulness or anything like that, you're trying to save lives. Therefore, you choose the action with the highest expected lives saved. It's that simple.
The puzzle has nothing to do with lives saved. The puzzle has to do with assigning moral responsibility.
But elsewhere I figured out my missing piece.
Yes, assuming that the fruits of your labor that was bought for $10 is another luxury (say a bottle of wine) instead of a necessity, then that person also killed $10 worth of people. Because suppose he had bought $10 worth of mosquito nets, then you could have worked as a mosquito net maker instead of a vintner, and you still would have gotten the $10. The two of you could have saved $20 worth of people, so not doing that is equivalent to each killing $10 worth of people.
Yeah, it finally clicked. The key point I was missing was that $10 costs time for me to obtain. By the time I obtain it, more people die.
Upvoted for clarity.