Now imagine Snidely says instead he’ll roll a die. If it comes up 1-5, he puts six people including you on the track. If it comes up 6, he lets you go and puts the other five people on the track. However if you agree to be tied to the track without a roll, without even a chance of escape, he’ll let the other five people go. What now? Suppose he rolls two dice and they both have to come up 6 for you to go free; but he’ll still let everyone else go if you agree. Will you save the other five people at the cost of a 1⁄36 chance of saving your own life? How about three dice? four? How many dice must Snidely roll before you think the chance of saving your own life is outweighed by the certainty of saving five others?
Is this going to be a “Boo Cryonics! Buy mosquito nets for Africans.” set up?
First of all, I’d like to strongly suggest that one instead consider the comparison of buying mosquito nets for Africans, vs. investing in Cryonics for complete strangers (obviously after one gets cryonics for oneself). That separates that actual considerations from the selfishness question that often confuses utilitarian discussions. It seems like an optimal strategy would be to determine a set amount/portion of income which one is willing to donate to charities, and then decide what charities to donate to.
Anyway, with that out of the way:
I want to point out that if you assume that the ability to make people immortal won’t happen for another 100 years (or that it will be a regular technology rather than a singularity, and it will take more than 100 years for starving Africans to be able to afford it- which would be pretty horrifying and put more interesting factors into the problem), then the effects of Cryonics if successful are pretty dramatically different from simply “saving your life”.
Of course, the chance (in our minds based on our current knowledge, in reality either might be settled) of Cryonics successfully making you immortal are well below 100%, and on the other hand there’s some chance that some Africans you save with mosquito nets might live long enough to have their brain downloaded. In fact, a very near-future Singularity would bring in some pretty weird changes to utility considerations; for instance, with Cryonics you’d need to consider the chance of it happening before you even die, in which case the money you saved or invested to pay for it could have been used to save Africans.
...personally I’m partial to just investing charity money in technological research; either something ones thinks will lead to brain downloading, or to medical technology or whatever will save the most lives in conventional circumstances (quite possibly cheaper treatments for tropical diseases, or something similar which primarily affects those too poor to fund research).
Is this going to be a “Boo Cryonics! Buy mosquito nets for Africans.” set up?
First of all, I’d like to strongly suggest that one instead consider the comparison of buying mosquito nets for Africans, vs. investing in Cryonics for complete strangers (obviously after one gets cryonics for oneself). That separates that actual considerations from the selfishness question that often confuses utilitarian discussions. It seems like an optimal strategy would be to determine a set amount/portion of income which one is willing to donate to charities, and then decide what charities to donate to.
Anyway, with that out of the way: I want to point out that if you assume that the ability to make people immortal won’t happen for another 100 years (or that it will be a regular technology rather than a singularity, and it will take more than 100 years for starving Africans to be able to afford it- which would be pretty horrifying and put more interesting factors into the problem), then the effects of Cryonics if successful are pretty dramatically different from simply “saving your life”.
Of course, the chance (in our minds based on our current knowledge, in reality either might be settled) of Cryonics successfully making you immortal are well below 100%, and on the other hand there’s some chance that some Africans you save with mosquito nets might live long enough to have their brain downloaded. In fact, a very near-future Singularity would bring in some pretty weird changes to utility considerations; for instance, with Cryonics you’d need to consider the chance of it happening before you even die, in which case the money you saved or invested to pay for it could have been used to save Africans.
...personally I’m partial to just investing charity money in technological research; either something ones thinks will lead to brain downloading, or to medical technology or whatever will save the most lives in conventional circumstances (quite possibly cheaper treatments for tropical diseases, or something similar which primarily affects those too poor to fund research).