I dislike this post. I don’t mean this to be a personal attack and I don’t want to come off as hostile, but I do want to make my objections known. I am choosing to state my reasons in lieu of downvoting.
First, “It does, but by definition.” is clearly false, otherwise you wouldn’t spend 6 paragraphs explaining it. This is something of a pet peeve of mine from grading homework, but whatever, it’s not important.
More importantly, its not really addressing the problems being discussed here. The discussion is whether 100 people at 500 resources is better than your asymptotically-worthless massive population, which is something that you don’t mention at all. Instead, you argue that if we have N+400 resources and N people and each person needs 1 resource to barely survive, then everyone survives when resources are evenly distributed, no matter what N you pick. Okay, but the conclusion is somehow “the repugnant conclusion is dead”? To be honest, I thought you were trying to argue in favor of the repugnant conclusion, at least in the specialized case of a universe that offers you N resources for every additional N people. But the only conclusion I see you really reaching is that a lot of people at a better-than-dead state is better than a world where there aren’t people—this doesn’t strike me as very exciting.
It seems fairly clear to me that one way in which Y is better than Y+ is that Y has greater average utility.
That said, I think most of my dislike for this post is caused by the tone and manner of expression. It was fairly disorganized and overly long. The tone was demeaning and combative: assuming the reader will disagree with basic premises and the use of phrases like “thus the student became enlightened”. Note how the top-level post gives the opposing voice to a fictional character rather than forcing it upon the reader—this is a much friendlier approach.
Lastly, can you tell me where you bought your Halting Machine? I wouldn’t mind one for myself… ;)
It seems fairly clear to me that one way in which Y is better than Y+ is that Y has greater average utility.
Yeah, on reflection the post is very unclear. I agree with the quoted sentiment, but the point I should have made was that we get to Y+ by a process that reduces average utility (redistributing resources evenly), so it doesn’t seem surprising or confusing that Y has greater average utility.
I dislike this post. I don’t mean this to be a personal attack and I don’t want to come off as hostile, but I do want to make my objections known. I am choosing to state my reasons in lieu of downvoting.
First, “It does, but by definition.” is clearly false, otherwise you wouldn’t spend 6 paragraphs explaining it. This is something of a pet peeve of mine from grading homework, but whatever, it’s not important.
More importantly, its not really addressing the problems being discussed here. The discussion is whether 100 people at 500 resources is better than your asymptotically-worthless massive population, which is something that you don’t mention at all. Instead, you argue that if we have N+400 resources and N people and each person needs 1 resource to barely survive, then everyone survives when resources are evenly distributed, no matter what N you pick. Okay, but the conclusion is somehow “the repugnant conclusion is dead”? To be honest, I thought you were trying to argue in favor of the repugnant conclusion, at least in the specialized case of a universe that offers you N resources for every additional N people. But the only conclusion I see you really reaching is that a lot of people at a better-than-dead state is better than a world where there aren’t people—this doesn’t strike me as very exciting.
It seems fairly clear to me that one way in which Y is better than Y+ is that Y has greater average utility.
That said, I think most of my dislike for this post is caused by the tone and manner of expression. It was fairly disorganized and overly long. The tone was demeaning and combative: assuming the reader will disagree with basic premises and the use of phrases like “thus the student became enlightened”. Note how the top-level post gives the opposing voice to a fictional character rather than forcing it upon the reader—this is a much friendlier approach.
Lastly, can you tell me where you bought your Halting Machine? I wouldn’t mind one for myself… ;)
Yeah, on reflection the post is very unclear. I agree with the quoted sentiment, but the point I should have made was that we get to Y+ by a process that reduces average utility (redistributing resources evenly), so it doesn’t seem surprising or confusing that Y has greater average utility.