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ArisKatsaris comments on Something to Protect - Less Wrong
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I think it ought to be made explicit in the first scenario that 100 lives are being lost with certainty, because it's not necessarily implied by the proposition. I know a lot of people inferred it, but the hypothetical situation never stated it was 400/500, so it could just as easily be 400/400, in which case choosing it would certianly be preferable to the second option. I think it's important you make your hypothetical situations clear and unambiguous. Besides, a 100% probability of 100 deaths explicitly stated will influence the way people perceive the question. If you leave out writing out that 100 people are dying, you're also subtly encouraging your readers to forget about those people as well, so it comes as little surprise that some would prefer option 1.
As MugaSofer said, it doesn't need be 400/500, it may be 400/1,000,000 vs (500/1,000,000 with 90% probability). The original question indicated "Suppose that a disease, or a monster, or a war, or something, is killing people. "
Imagine that hundreds of thousand lives are getting lost.
How about the following rephrasing?
There's a natural catastrophe (e.g. a tsunami) occuring that will claim >100,000 lives. You have two options:
I think that rephrasing improves it.