komponisto comments on Torturing people for fun - Less Wrong

13 Post author: cousin_it 14 February 2011 08:52PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 February 2011 09:44:41PM 3 points [-]

I wasn't saying that they were similar questions, just that one reminded me of the other. (Though I can see why one would think that.)

I'd say the answer to this is pretty simple. Laura ABF (if I remember the handle correctly) suggested of the original Torture vs. Specks dilemma that the avoided specks be replaced with 3^^^3 people having really great sex - which didn't change the answer for me, of course. This provides a similar template for the current problem: Figure out how many victims you would dustspeck in exchange for two beneficiaries having a high-quality sexual encounter, then figure out how many dustspecks correspond to a month of torture, then divide the second number by the first.

Comment author: komponisto 14 February 2011 10:06:37PM 4 points [-]

Laura ABF (if I remember the handle correctly)

I suspect it was probably LauraABJ.