In defining A and B as equally valuable, I have to equate the two. That said, it’s hard to imagine something that exists that would be as valuable to a non-starving healthy child right now as the meal to the starving child, so if the valuable thing you gave in scenario b were at all marketable, the inefficiency of choosing to use it to help b instead of the x (where x > 1) starving children would make the real psuedo-equation:
In defining A and B as equally valuable, I have to equate the two. That said, it’s hard to imagine something that exists that would be as valuable to a non-starving healthy child right now as the meal to the starving child, so if the valuable thing you gave in scenario b were at all marketable, the inefficiency of choosing to use it to help b instead of the x (where x > 1) starving children would make the real psuedo-equation:
utility(a) = utility(b)
cost(a) = x * cost(b)
if x > 1, do a, if x < 1 do b