My first reaction to this was, "I don't know; I don't understand 3^^^3 or a googol, or how to compare the suffering from a dust speck with torture." After I thought about it, I decided I was interpreting Eliezer's question like this: as the amount of suffering per person, say a, approaches zero but the number of people suffering, say n, goes to infinity, is the product a*n worse than somebody being tortured for 50 years?" The limiting product is undefined, though, isn't it? If a goes to zero fast enough, for example by ceasing to be suffer... (read more)
My first reaction to this was, "I don't know; I don't understand 3^^^3 or a googol, or how to compare the suffering from a dust speck with torture." After I thought about it, I decided I was interpreting Eliezer's question like this: as the amount of suffering per person, say a, approaches zero but the number of people suffering, say n, goes to infinity, is the product a*n worse than somebody being tortured for 50 years?" The limiting product is undefined, though, isn't it? If a goes to zero fast enough, for example by ceasing to be suffer... (read more)