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army1987 comments on Open thread, September 2-8, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

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

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Comment author: Alejandro1 03 September 2013 03:02:11AM *  9 points [-]

I agree, but is this the right comparison? Isn't this framing obscuring the fact that in the trillion-people world, you are much less likely to be born in the first place, in some sense?

Let us try this framing instead: Assume there are a very large number Z of possible different human "persons" (e.g. given by combinatorics on genes and formative experiences). There is a Rawlsian chance of 1/Z that a new created human will be "you". Behind the veil of ignorance, do you prefer the world to be one with X people living N years (where your chance of being born is X/Z) or the one with 10X people living N/10 years (where your chance of being born is 10X/Z)?

I am not sure this is the right intuition pump, but it seems to capture an aspect of the problem that yours leaves out.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 September 2013 08:25:51PM 4 points [-]

I agree, but is this the right comparison? Isn't this framing obscuring the fact that in the trillion-people world, you are much less likely to be born in the first place, in some sense?

Rawls's veil of ignorance + self-sampling assumption = average utilitarianism, Rawls's veil of ignorance + self-indication assumption = total utilitarianism (so to speak)? I had already kind-of noticed that, but hadn't given much thought to it.