But he views extinction-level events as “that much worse” than a single death. But is an extinction-level event that bad? If everyone gets wiped out, there’s no suffering left.
I’m not against others being happy and successful, and sure, that’s better than them not being. But I seem to have no preference for anyone existing. Even myself, my kids, my family—if I could, I’d erase the entire lot of us, but it’s just not practical.
Sure. Goal is to make TotalSuffering as small as possible, where each individual Suffering is >= 0. There may be some level of individual Suffering that rounds down to zero, like the pain of hurting your leg while trying to run faster, or stuff like that. The goal is to make sure no one is in real suffering, not eliminate all Fun.
One approach to do that is to make sure everyone is not suffering. That entails a gigantic amount of work. And if I understand MWI, it’s actually impossible, as branches will happen creating a sort of hell. (Only considering forward branches.) Sure, it “all averages out to normal”, but tell that to someone in a hell branch.
The other way is to eliminate all life (or the universe). Suffering is now at 0, an optimal value.
But he views extinction-level events as “that much worse” than a single death. But is an extinction-level event that bad? If everyone gets wiped out, there’s no suffering left.
I’m not against others being happy and successful, and sure, that’s better than them not being. But I seem to have no preference for anyone existing. Even myself, my kids, my family—if I could, I’d erase the entire lot of us, but it’s just not practical.
Your original post says,
Would you please describe the sequence of thoughts leading to that conclusion?
Sure. Goal is to make TotalSuffering as small as possible, where each individual Suffering is >= 0. There may be some level of individual Suffering that rounds down to zero, like the pain of hurting your leg while trying to run faster, or stuff like that. The goal is to make sure no one is in real suffering, not eliminate all Fun.
One approach to do that is to make sure everyone is not suffering. That entails a gigantic amount of work. And if I understand MWI, it’s actually impossible, as branches will happen creating a sort of hell. (Only considering forward branches.) Sure, it “all averages out to normal”, but tell that to someone in a hell branch.
The other way is to eliminate all life (or the universe). Suffering is now at 0, an optimal value.