Tasky comments on Circular Altruism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (300)
I don't know if I understood your circular argument right, but you are basically saying that if 50 years of torture for one person (50yt1) < dustspeck for a googolplex (ds10^10^100) then 50yt1>49.9999999yt10^100>49.9999998yt10^200>...>ds10^10^100
if this is not what you are saying, then I don't understand your point and ask to elucidate it. if it is, then I think there is a serious flaw here: in the 50yt1 scenario, someone is suffering, i.e. feeling pain in the ds10^10^100 scenario, there is a mere annoyance. There has therefore to be a point in that sequence, where one can consistently argue X10^Y<X'10^2Y, where X is the last "pain", X' is the first mere annoyance, therefore interrupting the chain.
I hope this is understandable.
EDIT to avoid double post: I think the kind of reasoning you are using is very, very dangerous if you try a gradual transformation between two things with different quality not just quantity. It is clear that the two extremes of the sequence have a different quality, but you are assuming the only thing that changes is quantity.