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benelliott comments on Utilitarians probably wasting time on recreation - Less Wrong Discussion

-7 Post author: nebulous 03 January 2012 10:54PM

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Comment author: benelliott 04 January 2012 02:35:31AM 0 points [-]

I don't value increasing third world population. Most obviously because more people starving to death closer to near a Malthusian limit is a bad thing.

But the aim isn't to create people, its to save those who are already alive. You are saying that many of those people need to die now to prevent other deaths later, sounds pretty movie-vilain to me.

What do you mean "Just"?

Well, its not always a good argument. Bad guys stereotypically have cats, this doesn't make cat ownership wrong. Yes, this is an absurd parody, but the general point is valid, correlation does not imply causation.

I was attacking consequentialism, at least the kind of consequentialism that assumes that killing people is morally equivalent to not saving them (that is most kinds). Extermination and inaction are not the same thing either intellectually or morally.

They seem pretty similar from the perspective of the person on the other end.

Comment author: wedrifid 04 January 2012 03:27:39AM *  5 points [-]

But the aim isn't to create people, its to save those who are already alive. You are saying that many of those people need to die now to prevent other deaths later, sounds pretty movie-vilain to me.

No it doesn't. That's ridiculous. It sounds like the role of an extra who isn't playing any significant role in the movie at all. I've never once seen a movie where the villain was completely irrelevant to the plot and made no significant plot related actions. I'm afraid you've just lost the assumption of good faith. Your earlier questions could have at least been genuine confusion but now it seems you are just trying to villainise the act of not sharing your naive morality. I mean as actual literal villains who do things like create genocidal diseases.

They seem pretty similar from the perspective of the person on the other end.

That sounds true until you actually think about it. Someone trying to exterminate you doesn't seem anything like someone who isn't involved at all.