I would suggest the answer is fairly obviously that one person be horribly tortured for 50 years, on the grounds that the idea “there exists 3^^^3 people” is incomprehensible cosmic horror even before you add in the mote of dust.
I am not so sure the existence of 3^^^3 people is a bad thing, but even granting that, assume that the 3^^^3 people exist regardless, and the two choices you have are: a) one of them is tortured for 50 years, or b) each and every one of them gets a mote of dust in the eye.
In general, if you find an objection to the premises of a question that does not directly impact the “point” of the question, you should find a variant of the premises that removes that objection, and answer the variant of the question with that as the premise. See The Least Convenient Possible World.
“[There exists 3^^^3 people] AND [of the set of all people there exists one that is tortured for 50 years OR of the set of all people, all get a mote of dust in the eye; which would you prefer]”?
Because that would be quite different to:
“[of the set of all people there exists one person who will be tortured for 50 years] OR [there exists 3^^^3 people AND each of them gets a mote of dust in the eye]; which would you prefer?”
The point of the question was to ask us to judge between the disutility of many people dust specked and a single person tortured, not to place a value on whether 3^^^3 existences is itself a bad or a good thing.
So, kinda of the former interpretation, except that the “3^^^3 people” part is merely the setting that enables the question, not really the point of the question...
EDIT: Btw, since I’m an anti-specker, I tried to calculate an upper bound once, for number of specks… It ended up being about 1.2 * 10^20 dust specks
Surely the incomprehensibly large number is part of the point of the question, otherwise why not use the set of all existing people being dust specked? ~7 billion dustmoted vs. 1 tortured?
3^^^3 people is more sentient mass than could physically fit in our universe.
Edit: Here’s how I imagined that playing out: 3^^^3 people are brought into existence, displacing all the matter of the universe. Which, while still momentarily conscious, each gets a mote of this matter in their eye, causing minor discomfort. They then all immediately die, and in the following eternity their bodies and the remainder of the universe collapses to a single point.
Surely the incomprehensibly large number is part of the point of the question, otherwise why not use the set of all existing people being dust specked? ~7 billion dustmoted vs. 1 tortured?
Because 7 billion dust specks aren’t enough. Obviously.
The point of the question is an extremely large number of tiny disutilities compared to a single vast disutility. When you’re imagining 3^^^3 deaths instead and the destruction of the universe, you’re kinda missing the point.
A few posts up, I’ve already linked to some calculations about various scenarios. You can look at them, if you are really genuinely interested—but why would you be? It’s the principle of the thing that’s interesting, not some inexact numbers one roughly calculates.
I would suggest the answer is fairly obviously that one person be horribly tortured for 50 years, on the grounds that the idea “there exists 3^^^3 people” is incomprehensible cosmic horror even before you add in the mote of dust.
I am not so sure the existence of 3^^^3 people is a bad thing, but even granting that, assume that the 3^^^3 people exist regardless, and the two choices you have are: a) one of them is tortured for 50 years, or b) each and every one of them gets a mote of dust in the eye.
In general, if you find an objection to the premises of a question that does not directly impact the “point” of the question, you should find a variant of the premises that removes that objection, and answer the variant of the question with that as the premise. See The Least Convenient Possible World.
Wait, does the original question simplify to:
“[There exists 3^^^3 people] AND [of the set of all people there exists one that is tortured for 50 years OR of the set of all people, all get a mote of dust in the eye; which would you prefer]”?
Because that would be quite different to:
“[of the set of all people there exists one person who will be tortured for 50 years] OR [there exists 3^^^3 people AND each of them gets a mote of dust in the eye]; which would you prefer?”
I answered the latter.
The point of the question was to ask us to judge between the disutility of many people dust specked and a single person tortured, not to place a value on whether 3^^^3 existences is itself a bad or a good thing.
So, kinda of the former interpretation, except that the “3^^^3 people” part is merely the setting that enables the question, not really the point of the question...
EDIT: Btw, since I’m an anti-specker, I tried to calculate an upper bound once, for number of specks… It ended up being about 1.2 * 10^20 dust specks
Surely the incomprehensibly large number is part of the point of the question, otherwise why not use the set of all existing people being dust specked? ~7 billion dustmoted vs. 1 tortured?
3^^^3 people is more sentient mass than could physically fit in our universe.
Edit: Here’s how I imagined that playing out: 3^^^3 people are brought into existence, displacing all the matter of the universe. Which, while still momentarily conscious, each gets a mote of this matter in their eye, causing minor discomfort. They then all immediately die, and in the following eternity their bodies and the remainder of the universe collapses to a single point.
Because 7 billion dust specks aren’t enough. Obviously.
The point of the question is an extremely large number of tiny disutilities compared to a single vast disutility. When you’re imagining 3^^^3 deaths instead and the destruction of the universe, you’re kinda missing the point.
What about 7 billion stubbed toes?
A few posts up, I’ve already linked to some calculations about various scenarios. You can look at them, if you are really genuinely interested—but why would you be? It’s the principle of the thing that’s interesting, not some inexact numbers one roughly calculates.