hyporational comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (1329)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Gurkenglas 02 December 2013 09:02:19AM *  0 points [-]

Is it acceptable to assume that the conversion cost up to a newborn is less than the rest of the way to an adult? (Think this through before reading on, to avoid biased thinking about the above (This is called "Meditate", right?)) Given that, wouldn't a rich excentric that commits to either spend a pool of money on paying people to roll boulders up and down a hill or on raising the next child he makes you pregnant with cause you to not be allowed to say no? (Edited for clarity)

Comment author: hyporational 02 December 2013 11:29:12AM 0 points [-]

Is it acceptable to assume that the conversion cost up to a newborn is less than the rest of the way to an adult?

It quite obviously is.

Given that, wouldn't a rich excentric that commits to either spend a pool of money on paying people to roll boulders up and down a hill or on raising your child cause you to not be allowed to refuse him?

If you mean as an alternative to infanticide, definitely. What's your point?

Comment author: Gurkenglas 02 December 2013 01:36:07PM *  0 points [-]

What I meant to say is that this complete stranger wants to have a child with Strange7 (for this hypothetical Strange7 can get pregnant) and it would be as wrong/illegal for Strange7 to not do so as late abortion or infanticide would be. (Edited grandparent for clarity)

Comment author: Strange7 14 December 2013 04:53:31AM 0 points [-]

If this hypothetical rich person is able and willing to cover all the costs of me bearing a child and the child being raised, they can draft a contract and present it to me. What greater good would be served by making it illegal for me to refuse? Such a law would weaken my negotiating position, increasing the chances that the rich eccentric would be able to avoid internalizing some of the long-term costs and/or that I would be put in the position of having to give up some marginally more lucrative prospect in order to avoid the legal penalty.

I'd rather not try to derive the full ethical calculus of abusive relationships and rape from first principles, but i can point you at some people who've studied the field enough to come up with excellent working approximations for most real-world cases.