It seems to me that you can rephrase them in terms of the resources the universe actually does contain, without changing the problem. Take SPECKS: Suppose that instead of the 3^^^^3 potential SPECKing victims, we instead make as many humans as possible given the size of the universe, and take that as the victim population. Should we expect this to change the decision?
Yes, I think it will change the decision. You need a very large number of minuscule steps to go from specs to torture, and at each stage you need to decimate the number of people affected to justify inflicting the extra suffering on the few. It’s probably fair to assume the universe can’t support more than say 2^250 people, which doesn’t seem nearly enough.
It seems to me that you can rephrase them in terms of the resources the universe actually does contain, without changing the problem. Take SPECKS: Suppose that instead of the 3^^^^3 potential SPECKing victims, we instead make as many humans as possible given the size of the universe, and take that as the victim population. Should we expect this to change the decision?
Yes, I think it will change the decision. You need a very large number of minuscule steps to go from specs to torture, and at each stage you need to decimate the number of people affected to justify inflicting the extra suffering on the few. It’s probably fair to assume the universe can’t support more than say 2^250 people, which doesn’t seem nearly enough.
You can increase the severity of the specking accordingly, though. Call it PINPRICKS, maybe?