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.

ShardPhoenix comments on Open thread, September 2-8, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: David_Gerard 02 September 2013 02:07PM

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

Comments (376)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 03 September 2013 04:55:53AM *  0 points [-]

Would you? A million probably isn't enough to sustain a modern economy, for example. (Although in the 3^^^3 case it depends on the assumed density since we can only fit a negligible fraction of that many people into our visible universe).

Comment author: Mestroyer 03 September 2013 05:01:38AM 4 points [-]

If the economies would be the same, then yes. Don't fight the hypothetical.

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 03 September 2013 11:25:04PM 1 point [-]

I think "fighting the hypothetical" is justified in cases where the necessary assumptions are misleadingly inaccurate - which I think is the case here.

Comment author: Creutzer 04 September 2013 05:40:13AM 3 points [-]

But compared to 3^^^3, it doesn't matter whether it's a million people, a billion, or a trillion. You can certainly find a number that is sufficient to sustain an economy and is still vastly smaller than 3^^^3, and you will end up preferring the smaller number for a single additional year of lifespan. Of course, for Rawls, this is a feature, not a bug.