Not the correct counterargument. Your torturer merely needs to keep you alive, or possibly cryopreserved, until lengthening your natural lifespan becomes possible.
Which is not a plausible scenario in today’s world.
If em torture is viable in the future, and I don’t think I can defend myself, I will seriously consider suicide. But rwallace comment was regarding today’s world.
The comment holds regardless. In today’s world, you can only be tortured for a few decades, but by the same token you can only lose a few decades of lifespan by committing suicide. If in some future world you can be tortured for a billion years, then you will also be losing a billion years of happy healthy life by committing suicide. If you think the mere possibility of torture—with no evidence that it is at all likely—will be grounds for committing suicide in that future world, then you should think it equally good grounds for committing suicide today. If you agree with me that would be insanely irrational today, you should also agree it will be insanely irrational in that future world.
I, and I suspect the entire human species, is risk averse. Suppose I have to choose between to bets:
A: 50% chance of living 100 happy years. 50% chance of living 100 torture years.
B: 50% chance of living 1,000,0000 happy years, 50% chance of living 1,000,000 torture years.
I will pick the first because it has the better bad option. While additional happy years have diminishing additional utility, additional torture have increasing dis-utility. I would rather a 50% chance of being tortured for 10 years than a 10% chance of being tortured for 50 years.
When WBE is invented, the stakes will be upped. The good possibilities get much better, and the bad possibilities get much worse. As a risk averse person, this scares me.
At those ratios, absolutely. I’m not sure how to explain why, since it just seems obvious that suicide would be preferable to a 50% chance of being tortured for a century. (I’m not sure at what what ratio it would become a real dilemma.)
My physical body can only be tortured a few decades, tops. An em can be tortured for a billion years, along with a billion em copies of myself.
Not the correct counterargument. Your torturer merely needs to keep you alive, or possibly cryopreserved, until lengthening your natural lifespan becomes possible.
Which is not a plausible scenario in today’s world.
If em torture is viable in the future, and I don’t think I can defend myself, I will seriously consider suicide. But rwallace comment was regarding today’s world.
The comment holds regardless. In today’s world, you can only be tortured for a few decades, but by the same token you can only lose a few decades of lifespan by committing suicide. If in some future world you can be tortured for a billion years, then you will also be losing a billion years of happy healthy life by committing suicide. If you think the mere possibility of torture—with no evidence that it is at all likely—will be grounds for committing suicide in that future world, then you should think it equally good grounds for committing suicide today. If you agree with me that would be insanely irrational today, you should also agree it will be insanely irrational in that future world.
I, and I suspect the entire human species, is risk averse. Suppose I have to choose between to bets:
A: 50% chance of living 100 happy years. 50% chance of living 100 torture years.
B: 50% chance of living 1,000,0000 happy years, 50% chance of living 1,000,000 torture years.
I will pick the first because it has the better bad option. While additional happy years have diminishing additional utility, additional torture have increasing dis-utility. I would rather a 50% chance of being tortured for 10 years than a 10% chance of being tortured for 50 years.
When WBE is invented, the stakes will be upped. The good possibilities get much better, and the bad possibilities get much worse. As a risk averse person, this scares me.
Would you prefer
C: 50% chance of living 1 happy minute. 50% chance of living 1 torture minute.
over both? If not, why not?
At those ratios, absolutely. I’m not sure how to explain why, since it just seems obvious that suicide would be preferable to a 50% chance of being tortured for a century. (I’m not sure at what what ratio it would become a real dilemma.)