This whole discussion seems to hinge on the possibly misleading choice of the word "torture" in the original thought-experiment. Words can be wrong and one way is to sneak in connotations and misleading vividness — and I think that's what's going on here.
The point is that a choice between the two is made. How the choice is instantiated is entirely irrelevant, saving that it be done in equivalent manners. (I.e.; if torture -> torturer, then speck -> specker && if torture !-> torturer; then speck !-> specker)
And that's what I think is going on here: it's not that 3^^^3 is a big number; it's that a torturer is an agent and the wind (exemplary deliverer of dust specks) is not.
That would invalidate equivalency between the two options, however. We needn't go that far. As I originally said; if the question is meant merely to derive whether a person views suffering to operate linearly for quantification purposes, as opposed to logarithmically, then restricting the topic to immediate suffering is sensible. However, the question was not phrased in that manner: it was instead asked to derive which of the two options is preferable to a consequentialistic utilitarian. And my argument simply put was that a culture that permits such tortures to occur -- either at the hand of an agent or otherwise -- faces significantly greater secondary consequences than are associated with 3^^^3 dust-speckings. Not the least of which is the ancillary suffering experienced by those cognizant of the suffering who can do nothing to prevent it; and the resulting increases in suffering in general caused by the presence of at least one individual suffering to that extremity -- or, rather, caused by the innurement to human suffering engendered in a non-zero percentage of individuals aware of that suffering. And then there's the question of self-determination; the tortured individual is bereft of all ability to achieve individual utility -- all forms of utility, whereas the 3^^^3 speckees recieve only a barely noticeable disutility of displeasure and are otherwise almost entirely unaffected. (It's possible a non-zero portion of those individuals might have accidents or the like, but given how infrequently getting a dust-speck in your eye causes traffic accidents -- as in, I can find no record of such an incident -- that's negligible.)
I hope this clears up any confusion here as to the nature of my argument.
For those not familiar with the topic, Torture vs. Dustspecks asks the question: "Would you prefer that one person be horribly tortured for fifty years without hope or rest, or that 3^^^3 people get dust specks in their eyes?"
Most of the discussion that I have noted on the topic takes one of two assumptions in deriving their answer to that question: I think of one as the 'linear additive' answer, which says that torture is the proper choice for the utilitarian consequentialist, because a single person can only suffer so much over a fifty year window, as compared to the incomprehensible number of individuals who suffer only minutely; the other I think of as the 'logarithmically additive' answer, which inverts the answer on the grounds that forms of suffering are not equal, and cannot be added as simple 'units'.
What I have never yet seen is something akin to the notion expressed in Ursula K LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.If you haven't read it, I won't spoil it for you.
I believe that any metric of consequence which takes into account only suffering when making the choice of "torture" vs. "dust specks" misses the point. There are consequences to such a choice that extend beyond the suffering inflicted; moral responsibility, standards of behavior that either choice makes acceptable, and so on. Any solution to the question which ignores these elements in making its decision might be useful in revealing one's views about the nature of cumulative suffering, but beyond that are of no value in making practical decisions -- they cannot be, as 'consequence' extends beyond the mere instantiation of a given choice -- the exact pain inflicted by either scenario -- into the kind of society that such a choice would result in.
While I myself tend towards the 'logarithmic' than the 'linear' additive view of suffering, even if I stipulate the linear additive view, I still cannot agree with the conclusion of torture over the dust speck, for the same reason why I do not condone torture even in the "ticking time bomb" scenario: I cannot accept the culture/society that would permit such a torture to exist. To arbitrarily select out one individual for maximal suffering in order to spare others a negligible amount would require a legal or moral framework that accepted such choices, and this violates the principle of individual self-determination -- a principle I have seen Less Wrong's community spend a great deal of time trying to consider how to incorporate into Friendliness solutions for AGI. We as a society already implement something similar to this, economically: we accept taxing everyone, even according to a graduated scheme. What we do not accept is enslaving 20% of the population to provide for the needs of the State.
If there is a flaw in my reasoning here, please enlighten me.