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Peterdjones comments on How minimal is our intelligence? - Less Wrong
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A consequentialist would ask, with an open mind, whether burning the libraries lead to good or bad consequences. A virtue ethicist would express disgust at the profanity of burning books. Your comment closely resembles the latter, whereas most discussion here on other topics tries to approximate the former.
I think it is no coincidence that this switch occurs in this context. Oh no, some dusty old tomes got destroyed! Compared to other events of the time, piddling for human "utility." But burning books lowers the status of academics, which is why it is considered (in Haidt-ian terms) a taboo by some - including, I would suggest, most on this site.
Since there is no gain whatsoever, it is still negative consequentially.
This doesn't seem that relevant. If you look above you'll see that Salemicus primary argument concerning the library wasn't that it was necessarily a good thing to do but that it wasn't severe compared to much worse things that happened in the same time period. His other argument about the role of academics was a subthread of that.
How do you quantify the worth of knowledge when you don't know what it is?
With difficulty. If you read the rest of this thread, specific examples based on what is suspected to have been at Alexandria have been discussed. One can make reasoned guesses based on was known and what was referenced elsewhere as being studied topics. See the earlier discussion about Diophantus (in the same subthread) for example.
Ok. The comment wasn't directed at you. It's just another of the many problems of trying to evaluate eveything by monetary worth.