You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Desrtopa comments on A variant on the trolley problem and babies as unit of currency - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: Solvent 08 January 2012 08:13AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (63)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Desrtopa 10 January 2012 08:23:22PM 0 points [-]

If I were to assume that all human lives had equal utility, I'd press the button, many times. But I don't think that lives-saved is a very good utility metric. If a person is saved from, say, malaria and malnutrition, and then grows up poor and uneducated and becomes a subsistence farmer, contracts HIV and dies, leaving behind several starving children, I am completely unabashed about assigning a lower utility to their life than someone living in healthier circumstances.

As the scenario is formulated, I don't think there's enough money to make me confident that the scales tip in favor of pressing it. But I'd do it for more money, or a guarantee that the person dying would be in similarly poor circumstances to the people being helped by the charities.