gwern comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong

55 Post author: D_Malik 15 May 2013 10:27PM

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Comment author: gwern 10 May 2013 09:34:18PM 1 point [-]

Anyway, creating tulpas is presumably much cheaper than raising an actual child, for anyone.

Or even better, do sperm donation. You're out maybe a few score hours at worst, for the chance of getting scores to hundreds (yes, really) of children. Compare that to a tulpa, where the guides on Reddit are estimating something like 100 hours to build up a reasonable tulpa, or raising a kid yourself (thousands of hours?).

Comment author: Adele_L 10 May 2013 10:02:01PM 1 point [-]

But someone still has to raise the kid at some point, and besides, not everyone can make sperm.

Comment author: gwern 11 May 2013 12:57:04AM 3 points [-]

I'm not sure that sperm banks have an oversupply; apparently England has something of a shortage due to its questionable decision to ban anonymous donation, which is why our David Gerard reports back that it was very easy to do even though he's old enough he wouldn't even be considered in the USA as far as I can tell.

Comment author: shminux 10 May 2013 10:26:37PM 3 points [-]

It's possible to donate eggs, though it's not nearly as much fun.

Comment author: Adele_L 10 May 2013 10:41:02PM 1 point [-]

Not everyone is fertile. I can't make either, currently.

But my point is that someone still has to take the cost of raising the child. So a utilitarian might try to convince more people to make tulpas instead of making more babies.

Comment author: DanielLC 10 May 2013 11:24:56PM *  2 points [-]

But someone still has to raise the kid at some point

They wouldn't otherwise be working to increase the population, so the cost is negligible.

and besides, not everyone can make sperm.

But someone can. Pay them to do it.