On the other hand, you often need to consider that you're less likely to live in one universe than in another. For instance, if you could make 10% of population vastly happier by killing the other 90%, you need to factor in the 10% chances of survival.
I don't buy into that theory of identity. The way the universe works, observer-moments are arranged in lines. There's no reason this is necessary in principle. It could be a web where minds split and merge, or a bunch of Boltzmann brains that appear and vanish after a nanosecond. You are just a random one of the observer-moments. And you have to be one that actually exist, so there's a 100% chance of survival.
If you did buy into that theory, that would result in a warped form of average utilitarianism, where you want to maximize the average value of the total utility of a given person.
Haven't had one of these for awhile. This thread is for questions or comments that you've felt silly about not knowing/understanding. Let's try to exchange info that seems obvious, knowing that due to the illusion of transparency it really isn't so obvious!