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RowanE comments on [Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17) - Less Wrong
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If suffering has far greater dis-utility for you than happy living has utility, is it logical to conclude that it'd be a good thing if the universe ceased to exist, thereby preventing all future suffering at the cost of all future life?
Only if you also do not expect there to be enough happy living to outweigh the amount of suffering.
This just doesn't seem right. Perhaps no amount of happy living outweighs suffering beyond a certain amount.
Well, that sounds obviously wrong - it would mean you could start with a universe you liked, scale up the population without changing average quality of life at all, and end up with a universe in which you want to destroy all life.
What makes this obviously wrong? I mean, aside from preferences, why would it not make sense to start with a universe in a current state you like and end up with a state you dislike?
The universe you dislike is in the same state as the one you like, there's just more of it.
I think you're talking past each other. Rowan is assuming the amount of happiness and suffering to be distributed across several people, where adding another person with the same suffering/pleasure ratio shouldn't change anything, and dunno is, I believe, talking about a single person's perspective where, once you've reached a certain amount of suffering, it might be impossible to outweigh it.