Totalling the value of a second from any number of humans can never equal the value of a human lifetime,
I don’t see why not.
, because you won’t have caused any serious problems for any person.
You’ll have caused an infinitisemal problem to a truly humongous number of people.
Even before I had discovered LessWrong or met the dust-speck-vs-torture problem, I had publically wondered if some computer virus-creators (especially those famous viruses that affected millions of people worldwide, hijacking email services, etc) were even worse in the results of their actions than your average murderer or average rapist. They stole some minutes out of many million people’s lives. Minutes stolen from how many millions people become morally equivalent to murdering a person?
So the issue exists: If dust specks aren’t enough for you, how about breaking a leg of 3^^^^3 people. This doesn’t ruin their whole life, but it may ruin a whole month for them. Does the equation seem different now (by talking about a month instead of millisecond), that you would prefer to have a single person tortured for 50 years instead of 3^^^^3 people having a leg broken?
Well, if those 3^^^^3 people being crippled for a month is going to shut down the galactic economy, then torturing someone for fifty years is preferable. If we’re just taking the suffering of one person who broke his leg, then had 3^^^^3 other people endure the same thing in ISOLATION (say each of the leg-breakers lives in a different parallel universe and thus no society has to give more than one month’s worth of worker’s compensation), on the other hand, I would rather have everyone break their legs.
I see. This is then no longer about not causing “serious problems”—because a broken leg is a serious problem.
But how far does your argument extent. Let’s increase the amount of individual harm:
How about 3^^^^3 people tortured for 3 months, vs a single person being tortured for 50 years? Which would you rather?
How about 3^^^^3 people imprisoned unjustly for ten years, in rather bad but not torturing conditions, vs a single person being tortured for 50 years. Which would you rather?
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For the sake of this discussion, we indeed consider the cases individual (we can imagine each case happening in a parallel universe, as you suggest)
Three months of torture is enough to cause immense and longlasting psychological scarring. Ten years out of your life is something that changes the course of a person’s life. I would rather someone be tortured for fifty years than have either of the above happen to a large number of people.
I think your choice of broken leg is pretty much exactly at the threshold. I can’t think of anything worse than that that wouldn’t stand a good chance of ruining someone’s life.
I don’t see why not.
You’ll have caused an infinitisemal problem to a truly humongous number of people.
Even before I had discovered LessWrong or met the dust-speck-vs-torture problem, I had publically wondered if some computer virus-creators (especially those famous viruses that affected millions of people worldwide, hijacking email services, etc) were even worse in the results of their actions than your average murderer or average rapist. They stole some minutes out of many million people’s lives. Minutes stolen from how many millions people become morally equivalent to murdering a person?
So the issue exists: If dust specks aren’t enough for you, how about breaking a leg of 3^^^^3 people. This doesn’t ruin their whole life, but it may ruin a whole month for them. Does the equation seem different now (by talking about a month instead of millisecond), that you would prefer to have a single person tortured for 50 years instead of 3^^^^3 people having a leg broken?
Well, if those 3^^^^3 people being crippled for a month is going to shut down the galactic economy, then torturing someone for fifty years is preferable. If we’re just taking the suffering of one person who broke his leg, then had 3^^^^3 other people endure the same thing in ISOLATION (say each of the leg-breakers lives in a different parallel universe and thus no society has to give more than one month’s worth of worker’s compensation), on the other hand, I would rather have everyone break their legs.
I see. This is then no longer about not causing “serious problems”—because a broken leg is a serious problem.
But how far does your argument extent. Let’s increase the amount of individual harm: How about 3^^^^3 people tortured for 3 months, vs a single person being tortured for 50 years? Which would you rather?
How about 3^^^^3 people imprisoned unjustly for ten years, in rather bad but not torturing conditions, vs a single person being tortured for 50 years. Which would you rather?
- For the sake of this discussion, we indeed consider the cases individual (we can imagine each case happening in a parallel universe, as you suggest)
Three months of torture is enough to cause immense and longlasting psychological scarring. Ten years out of your life is something that changes the course of a person’s life. I would rather someone be tortured for fifty years than have either of the above happen to a large number of people.
I think your choice of broken leg is pretty much exactly at the threshold. I can’t think of anything worse than that that wouldn’t stand a good chance of ruining someone’s life.