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Salivanth comments on Torture vs. Dust Specks - Less Wrong
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Actually, I ended up resolving this at some point. I would in fact pick the dust specks in this case, because the situations aren't identical. I'd spend a lot of time in my 3^^^3 lives worrying if I'm going to start being tortured for 50 years, but I wouldn't worry about the dust specks. Technically, the disutility of the dust specks is worse, but my brain can't comprehend the number "3^^^3", so it would worry more about the torture happening to me. Adding in the disutility of worrying about the torture, even a small amount, across 3^^^3 / 2 lives, and it's clear that I should pick the dust specks for myself in this situation, regardless of whether or not I choose torture in the original problem.
This is sort of avoiding the question. What if you made the choice, but then had your memory erased about the whole dilemma right afterwards? Assuming you knew before making your choice that your memory would be erased, of course.
Then I choose the torture. I've grown a bit more comfortable with overriding intuition in regards to extremely large numbers since my original reply 3 months ago.