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dfranke comments on Off Topic Thread: May 2009 - Less Wrong
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Ming the Merciless offers you a choice that you cannot refuse. Either (a) his torturer will rip one of your fingernails off, or (b) his torturer will inflict pain more intense than you can imagine, continuously for the next 24 hours, without otherwise harming you. But in case (b) only, his evil genius neuroscientists will cause you to afterwards completely forget the experience, and any other aftereffects from the stress will be put right as well. If you refuse to make a choice, you will get (b) without the amnesia.
What do you choose?
If you choose (a), how much worse would (a) have to be, for you to choose (b)? If you choose (b), how much less bad would (a) have to be, for you to choose (a)?
I'd go with (a) for values of (a) smaller than loss of a finger.
how much does the level of medical technology in the society in which you live matter?
Basically the amount you'd expect: if medical technology allowed me to regrow the finger with full use of it, that would mitigate it considerably. With current technology, it gets me a lifetime of inconvenience.
At the level of loss of a fingernail, I think the answer is a no-brainer: (a) gets me considerably less total pain, with both options protracted over a period of time that makes time preference mostly inconsequential (24 hours, and maybe a couple weeks); getting a fingernail ripped off isn't a bad enough experience to have any significant long-term impact on my mental state.