I am an easily bored Omega-level being, and I want to play a game with you.
I am going to offer you two choices.
Choice 1: You spend the next thousand years in horrific torture, after which I restore your local universe to precisely the state it is in now (wiping your memory in the process), and hand you a box with a billion dollars in it.
Choice two: You spend the next thousand years in exquisite bliss, after which I restore your local universe to precisely the state it is in now (wiping your memory in the process), and hand you a box with an angry hornet's nest in it.
Which do you choose?
Now, you blink. I smile and inform you that you made your choice, and hand you your box. Which choice do you hope you made?
You object? Fine. Let's play another game.
I am going to offer you two choices.
Choice 1: I create a perfect simulation of you, and run it through a thousand simulated years of horrific torture (which will take my hypercomputer all of a billionth of a second to run), after which I delete the simulation and hand you a box with a billion dollars in it.
Choice 2: I create a perfect simulation of you, and run it through a thousand simulated years of exquisite bliss (which will take my hypercomputer all of a billionth of a second to run), after which I delete the simulation and hand you a box with an angry hornet's nest in it.
Which do you choose?
Now, I smile and inform you that I already made a perfect simulation of you and asked it that question. Which choice do you hope it made?
Let's expand on that. What if instead of creating one perfect simulation of you, I create 2^^^^3 perfect simulations of you? Which do you choose now?
What if instead of a thousand simulated years, I let the boxes run for 2^^^^3 simulated years each? Which do you choose now?
I have the box right here. Which do you hope you chose?
What is the point of this post?
It does draw attention to the fact that we're often bad at deciding which entities to award ethical weight to. Not necessarily the clearest post doing so, and missing authorial opinion, but I wouldn't be shocked if the LW community could have an interesting discussion resulting from this post