If that population of 400 or 500 people is all that’s left of Homo Sapiens, then it’s obvious to me that keeping 400 with probability 1 is better than keeping 500 with probability 0.9. Repopulating starting with 400 doesn’t seem much harder than repopulating starting with 500, but repopulating starting with 0 is obviously impossible.
If we change the numbers a little bit, we get a different and still interesting example. I don’t see an important difference between having 10 billion happy people and having 100 billion happy people. I can’t visualize either number, and I have no reason to believe that having another 90 billion after the first 10 billion gives anything I care about.
Multiplying individual utility by number of people to get total utility is a mistake, IMO. I don’t know what the correct solution is, but that’s not it.
If that population of 400 or 500 people is all that’s left of Homo Sapiens, then it’s obvious to me that keeping 400 with probability 1 is better than keeping 500 with probability 0.9. Repopulating starting with 400 doesn’t seem much harder than repopulating starting with 500, but repopulating starting with 0 is obviously impossible.
If we change the numbers a little bit, we get a different and still interesting example. I don’t see an important difference between having 10 billion happy people and having 100 billion happy people. I can’t visualize either number, and I have no reason to believe that having another 90 billion after the first 10 billion gives anything I care about.
Multiplying individual utility by number of people to get total utility is a mistake, IMO. I don’t know what the correct solution is, but that’s not it.