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APMason comments on Please Don't Fight the Hypothetical - Less Wrong
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I choose specks, but I found the discussion very helpful nonetheless.
Specifically, I learned that if you believe suffering is additive in any way, choosing torture is the only answer that makes sense. If you don't believe that (and I don't), then your references to "negative utility" are not as well defined as you think.
Edit: In other words, I think Torture v. Specks is just a restatement of the Repugnant Conclusion
The Repugnant Conclusion can be rejected by average-utilitarianism, whereas in Torture vs. Dustspecks average-utilitarianism still tells you to torture, because the disutility of 50 years of torture divided among 3^^^3 people is less than the disutility of 3^^^3 dustspecks divided among 3^^^3 people. That's an important structural difference to the thought experiment.