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owencb comments on Potential vs already existent people and aggregation - Less Wrong Discussion
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Yeah, it definitely seems like we're talking past each other here. I think I don't understand what you mean by "aggregation" -- I have a different impression from this comment than from the opening post. Perhaps you can clarify that?
Not sure if this is relevant: From a utilitarian point of view I think you can aggregate when creating lives, but of course the counterfactuals you'll use will change (as mostly what you're trying to work out is how good creating a life is).
Let me try and be careful and clear here.
What I meant by "aggregation" is that when we have to choose between X and Y once, we may have unclear intuitions, but if we have to choose between X and Y multiple times (given certain conditions), the choice is clear (and is Y, for example).
There are two intuitive examples of this. The first is when X causes a definite harm and Y causes a probability of harm, as in http://lesswrong.com/lw/1d5/expected_utility_without_the_independence_axiom/ . The second is the example I gave here, where X causes harm to a small group while Y causes smaller harm to a larger group.
Now, the "certain conditions" can be restrictive (here it is applied repeatedly to a fixed population). I see these aggregation arguments as providing at least some intuitive weight to the idea that Y>X even in the one-shot case. However, as far as I can tell, this aggregation argument (or anything similar) is not available for creating populations. Or do you see an analogous idea?