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Grognor comments on Life Extension versus Replacement - Less Wrong Discussion
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First thought: I accept the repugnant conclusion because I am a hard utilitarian. I also take the deals in the lifespan dilemma because my intuition that the epsilon chances of survival "wouldn't be worth it" are due to scope insensitivity.
Second: I attach much more disutility to death than utility to birth for two reasons, one good and bad. The bad reason is that I selfishly do not want to die. The good reason, which I have not seen mentioned, is that the past is not likely to repeat itself. Memories of the past have utility in themselves! History is just lines on paper, sometimes with videos, sometimes not, but it doesn't compare to actual experience! Experience and memory matter. Discounting them is an error in utilitarian reasoning.
The exact circumstances and memories of a person's life will not repeat but that's just as good an argument for creating new people who will also have unique memories that otherwise would not happen. While some remarkable memories from the past would be in some ways special to me if I can trace any sort of cultural lineage through them, memories from closely intertwined lives would interest me less than other memories that would be completely novel to me.
You're right. But here's the thing. I should have said it in my original comment, but the argument holds because learning from history is important, and, as we've all shown, that's REALLY HARD to do when everyone keeps dying. And I also strongly value the will to awesomeness, striving to be better and better (even before I read Tsuyoku Naritai), and I expect that people start at 0 and increase faster than linearly over time. In other words, the utility is still greater for the people who are still alive.