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Andrew_Macdonald comments on Torture vs. Dust Specks - Less Wrong
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A consistent utilitarian would choose the torture, but I don't think it's the moral choice.
Let's bring this a little closer to home. Hypothetically, let's say you get to live your life again 3^^^3 times. Would you prefer to have an additional dust speck in your eye in each of your future lives, or else be tortured for 50 years in a single one of them?
Any takers for the torture?
Man that's a good one. It's certainly interesting to know that my ability to override intuition when it comes to large numbers is far less effective when the question is applied to me personally. I'm assuming that this question assumes no other ill effects from the specks. And I know I should pick the torture. I know that if the torture is the best outcome for other people, it's the best outcome for myself. But if I was given that choice in real life, I don't think I would as of writing this comment.
I have some correcting to do.
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.