...on signing up for cryopreservation with the Cryonics Institute.
(No, it's not a joke.)
Anyone not signed up for cryonics has now lost the right to make fun of Paris Hilton,
because no matter what else she does wrong, and what else you do right,
all of it together can't outweigh the life consequences of that one little decision.
Congratulations, Paris. I look forward to meeting you someday.
Addendum: On Nov 28 '07, Paris Hilton denied being signed up for cryonics. Oh well.
I suppose to a Pete Singer utilitarian it might be correct that we assign equal weight of importance to everyone in and beyond our [spacetime].
In the scenario with all the properties I list above, I assign most of the intrinsic good to obeying the Mugger. Some intrinsic good is assigned to continuing to refine our civilization's model of reality, but the more investment in that project fails to yield the ability to cause effects that persist indefinitely without the Mugger's help, the more intrinsic good gets heaped on obeying the Mugger. Nothing else gets any intrinsic good, including every human and in fact every intelligent agent in our spacetime. Agents in our spacetime must make do with whatever instrumental good derives from the two intrinsic goods. So for example if Robin is expected to be thrice as useful to those two goods as Eliezer is, then he gets thrice as much instrumental good. Not exactly Pete Singer! No one can accuse me of remaining vague on my goals to avoid offending people! I might revise this paragraph after learning more decision theory, Solomonoff induction, etc.