all of them should at least be monotonically increasing with increased happiness, lower trauma, etc
OK, so we agree that doubling the population doesn’t provide twice the utility, but you’re now arguing that it at least increases the utility (at least, up to a possible upper bound which might or might not exist).
This depends on the assumption that the utility-increasing aspects of increased population increase with population faster than the utility-decreasing aspects of increased population do. Which they might not.
...you know, it’s only after I read this comment that I realised that you’re suggesting that the utility-decreasing aspects may not use the same function as the utility-decreasing aspects. That is, what I was doing was mathematically equivalent to first linearly combining the separate aspects, and only then feeding that single number to a monotonically increasing nonlinear function.
Now I feel somewhat silly.
But yes, now I see that you are right. There are possible ethical models (example: bounded asymptotic increase for positive utility, unbounded linear decrease for negative utility) wherein a larger Omelas could be worse than a smaller Omelas, above some critical maximum size. In fact, there are some functions wherein an Omelas of size X could have positive utility, while an Omelas of size Y (with Y>X) could have negative utility.
OK, so we agree that doubling the population doesn’t provide twice the utility, but you’re now arguing that it at least increases the utility (at least, up to a possible upper bound which might or might not exist).
This depends on the assumption that the utility-increasing aspects of increased population increase with population faster than the utility-decreasing aspects of increased population do. Which they might not.
...you know, it’s only after I read this comment that I realised that you’re suggesting that the utility-decreasing aspects may not use the same function as the utility-decreasing aspects. That is, what I was doing was mathematically equivalent to first linearly combining the separate aspects, and only then feeding that single number to a monotonically increasing nonlinear function.
Now I feel somewhat silly.
But yes, now I see that you are right. There are possible ethical models (example: bounded asymptotic increase for positive utility, unbounded linear decrease for negative utility) wherein a larger Omelas could be worse than a smaller Omelas, above some critical maximum size. In fact, there are some functions wherein an Omelas of size X could have positive utility, while an Omelas of size Y (with Y>X) could have negative utility.
Yup. Sorry I wasn’t clearer earlier; glad we’ve converged.