steven0461 comments on Dead Child Currency - Less Wrong

14 Post author: jkaufman 09 January 2012 06:46PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 10 January 2012 01:56:24AM 0 points [-]

Given some plausible assumptions, increasing the probability of a future trans-humanist utopia populated by an unimaginably large number of humans should be much higher return in terms of observer moments:

http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html

Comment author: steven0461 10 January 2012 02:18:00AM *  3 points [-]

I think it would be fun to rename the dollar to the "lifeless galaxy cluster". (Though there are potential caveats here about things like aliens and simulations.)

Comment author: steven0461 10 January 2012 02:52:48AM 4 points [-]

The Dead Child thing isn't morbid enough. We should figure out how many punches to the face are equal in moral badness to one death. Then if it's say a thousand, we could rename the dollar to the punch-to-the-face.

Comment author: khafra 10 January 2012 01:32:06PM 3 points [-]

That would create an interesting schelling point for torts of assault.

Comment author: AlexanderRM 02 September 2015 11:01:33PM 0 points [-]

Worth noting that the dead baby value is very different from the actual amount which most Westerners regard the lives of white, middle-class people from their own country as being worth. In fact, pretty much the whole point of the statistic is that it's SHOCKINGLY low. I suppose we could hope that Dead Baby currency would result in a reduction to that discrepancy... although I think in the case of the actual example given, the Malthusians* have a point where it would dramatically increase access to life-prolonging things without increasing access to birth control much, resulting in more population and thus more people to save.

*To clarify: I actually agree with the Malthusian ecology- it's just a basic fact of ecology, I'm amazed that anyone seriously disagrees with it- but not to the objection to charitable donations on that basis; anyone who actually thinks that would go "you should instead give money to provide birth control".

Comment author: juliawise 28 October 2015 08:12:27PM *  0 points [-]

If the demographic transition continues, I'm not too worried about Malthusian scenarios. It seems that people who are less worried about their children being wiped out by disease have fewer children.

Another option is interventions that improve lives without saving them, such as deworming.