I appreciated the level of thought you put into the argument, even though it does not actually convince me to oppose life extension. Thank you for writing (and prezi-ing) it, I look forward to more.
Basically, the hidden difference if you put me and 9 others behind a veil of ignorance and ask us to decide whether we each get 80 or one gets 800, is that in that case you have the presence of 10 people competing and trying to avoid being “killed” whereas in the choice between creating one 800 year old versus 10 80 year olds is conducted without an actual threat being posed to anyone.
While you can establish that the 10 people would anticipate with fear (and hence generate disutility) the prospect of being destroyed / prevented to live, that’s not the same as establishing that 9 completely nonexistent people would generate the same disutility even if they never started to exist.
I don’t think the thought experiment hinges on any of this. Suppose you were on you own and Omega offered you certainty of 80 years versus 1⁄10 of 800 and 9⁄10 of nothing. I’m pretty sure most folks would play safe.
The addition of people makes it clear if (grant the rest) a society of future people would want to agree that those who ‘live first’ should refrain from life extension and let the others ‘have their go’.
Loss aversion is another thing altogether, if most people choose 80 sure years instead of 800 years at a 1⁄10 risk it doesn’t necessarily prove that it is actually less valuable.
Suppose Omega offers to copy you and let you live out 10 lives simultaneously (or one after another, restoring from the same checkpoint each time) on the condition that each instance dies and is irrecoverably deleted after 80 years. Is that worth more than spending 800 years alive all in one go?
Plausibly, depending on your view of personal identity, yes.
I won’t be identical to my copies, and so I think I’d play the same sorts of arguments I want to do so far—copies are potential people, and behind a veil of ignorance between whether I’d be a copy or the genuine article, the collection of people would want to mutually agree the genuine article picks the former option in Omegas gamble.
(Aside: loss/risk aversion is generally not taken to be altogether different from justice. I mean, veil of ignorance heuristic specifies a risk averse agent, and difference principle seems to be loss averse.
I appreciated the level of thought you put into the argument, even though it does not actually convince me to oppose life extension. Thank you for writing (and prezi-ing) it, I look forward to more.
Basically, the hidden difference if you put me and 9 others behind a veil of ignorance and ask us to decide whether we each get 80 or one gets 800, is that in that case you have the presence of 10 people competing and trying to avoid being “killed” whereas in the choice between creating one 800 year old versus 10 80 year olds is conducted without an actual threat being posed to anyone.
While you can establish that the 10 people would anticipate with fear (and hence generate disutility) the prospect of being destroyed / prevented to live, that’s not the same as establishing that 9 completely nonexistent people would generate the same disutility even if they never started to exist.
I don’t think the thought experiment hinges on any of this. Suppose you were on you own and Omega offered you certainty of 80 years versus 1⁄10 of 800 and 9⁄10 of nothing. I’m pretty sure most folks would play safe.
The addition of people makes it clear if (grant the rest) a society of future people would want to agree that those who ‘live first’ should refrain from life extension and let the others ‘have their go’.
Loss aversion is another thing altogether, if most people choose 80 sure years instead of 800 years at a 1⁄10 risk it doesn’t necessarily prove that it is actually less valuable.
Suppose Omega offers to copy you and let you live out 10 lives simultaneously (or one after another, restoring from the same checkpoint each time) on the condition that each instance dies and is irrecoverably deleted after 80 years. Is that worth more than spending 800 years alive all in one go?
Plausibly, depending on your view of personal identity, yes.
I won’t be identical to my copies, and so I think I’d play the same sorts of arguments I want to do so far—copies are potential people, and behind a veil of ignorance between whether I’d be a copy or the genuine article, the collection of people would want to mutually agree the genuine article picks the former option in Omegas gamble.
(Aside: loss/risk aversion is generally not taken to be altogether different from justice. I mean, veil of ignorance heuristic specifies a risk averse agent, and difference principle seems to be loss averse.