All of dragonfiremalus's Comments + Replies

A lot of the comments I see seem to be coming from a belief that I am suggesting we throw out or disregard the US Constitution entirely. I'm not. It is mostly a great document for the structure of the country. I'm just suggesting that it shouldn't be taken as the infallible word of demigods. I am guessing most of you don't think of it like that. But I've encountered plenty of people who do.

I think I've seen some other comments bring it up, but I'll say it again. I think people who go for the torture are working off a model of linear discomfort addition, in which case the badness of the torture would have to be as bad as 3^^^3 dust particles in the eye to justify taking the dust. However, I'd argue that it's not linear. Two specs of dust is worse than twice as bad as one spec. 3^^^3 people getting specs in their eyes is unimaginably less bad than one person getting 3^^^3 specs (a ridiculous image considering that's throwing universes into a dude's eye). So the spec very well may be less than 1/(3^^^3) as bad as torture.

Even so, I doubt it. So purely utilitarian probably does suggest torture the one guy.

0Jiro
It has to be more than just not linear for that to solve it, it has to be so nonlinear that no finite number of specks at all can add up to the torture, since otherwise we could just ask the same question using the new number instead of 3^^^3. If it's so nonlinear that no finite number of specks can add up to torture, then you find the maximum amount that a finite number of specks can add up to. Then there are two amounts (one slightly more than that and one slightly less) where one amount cannot be balanced by dust particles and one amount can, which doesn't really make any sense.

I know I'm way late to the party, but I still gave it a good long think, considering all aspects of the problem before trying to envision a solution. What seems the best solution to me is to return along their own starline, use the several weeks of delay given to evacuate as many people as possible from the connecting colony Huygens (which from the intro is the colony the ship came from through the starline), and then destroy that system, cutting humanity off from the Super Happy Fun aliens, at least for now.

All throughout highschool I wanted to learn to play the guitar. But at that point in time almost everyone I knew was learning to play the guitar, and I sure wasn't going to do what everybody else did. Now, six years later, I'm finally learning. It's a real shame let my disgust of conformity drive me away from putting off something I now love.

4Good_Burning_Plastic
Actually not doing stuff there's already a glut of is not a terribly bad heuristic: for example, if in your area there are 1000 guitarist and 100 drummers it's much easier for you to get into a band if you play the drums than if you play the guitar.