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shminux comments on Open Thread, June 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong
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To rationalize dust specks over torture, one can construct a utility function where utility of dust specks in n people is of the Zeno type, -(1-1/2^n), and the utility of torture is -2. Presumably, something else goes wrong when you do that. What is it?
As commenter Unknown pointed out in 2008, there must then exist two events A and B, with B only worse than A by an arbitrarily small amount, such that no number of As could be worse than some finite number of Bs.
Thanks, that's a valid point, pretty formal, too. I wonder if it invalidates the whole argument.
Many find that sort of discounting to be contrary to intuition and desired results, e.g. the suffering of some particular person is more or less significant depending on how many other people are suffering in a similar enough way.
Nothing. If that is your actual preferences then that is the choice you should make. Not because you can rationalize it but because that is, in fact, what you want to do all things considered.