the fleeting discomfort is lost in the noise of other minor nuisances and has no lasting effect.
One speck of sand will be lost in a beach, but adding a speck of sand will still make it a bigger beach, and adding 3^^^3 specks of sand will make it a black hole.
has no lasting effect.
You notice it while it's happening. You forget about it eventually, but even if you were tortured for 3^^^3 years before finally dying, you'd forget it all the moment you die.
One speck of sand will be lost in a beach, but adding a speck of sand will still make it a bigger beach, and adding 3^^^3 specks of sand will make it a black hole.
6 × 10^30 kilograms of sand on one beach on one inhabited planet will collapse it into a black hole, which is far, far smaller amount of mass than 3^^^3 molecules of silicon dioxide. But adding one molecule of silicon dioxide to each of 3^^^3 beaches on inhabited planets throughout as many universes as necessary seems to cause far less disutility than adding 6 × 10^30 kilograms of sand to one...
Today's post, Torture vs. Dust Specks was originally published on 30 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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