Yvain2 comments on How Many LHC Failures Is Too Many? - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 September 2008 09:38PM

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Comment author: Yvain2 21 September 2008 12:49:53AM 10 points [-]

Originally I was going to say yes to the last question, but after thinking over why a failure of the LHC now (before it would destroy Earth) doesn't let me conclude anything by the anthropic principle, I'm going to say no.

Imagine a world in which CERN promises to fire the Large Hadron Collider one week after a major terrorist attack. Consider ten representative Everett branches. All those branches will be terrorist-free for the next few years except number 10, which is destined to suffer a major terrorist attack on January 1, 2009.

On December 31, 2008, Yvains 1 through 10 are perfectly happy, because they live in a world without terrorist attacks.

On January 2, 2009, Yvains 1 through 9 are perfectly happy, because they still live in worlds without terrorist attacks. Yvain 10 is terrified and distraught, both because he just barely escaped a terrorist attack the day before, and because he's going to die in a few days when they fire the LHC.

On January 8, 2009, CERN fires the LHC, killing everyone in Everett branch 10.

Yvains 1 through 9 aren't any better off than they would've been otherwise. Their universe was never destined to have a terrorist attack, and it still hasn't had a terrorist attack. Nothing has changed.

Yvain 10 is worse off than he would have been otherwise. If not for the LHC, he would be recovering from a terrorist attack, which is bad but not apocalyptically so. Now he's dead. There's no sense in which his spirit has been averaged out over Yvains 1 through 9. He's just plain dead. That can hardly be considered an improvement.

Since it doesn't help anyone and it does kill a large number of people, I'd advise CERN against using LHC-powered anthropic tricks to "prevent" terrorism.