Yet Another "Axiom" Question - Page 13

RJT · #**121** 01-11-2007, 09:41 PM

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Suppose the only thing I care about is not causing harm. Then it immediately follows that I care about one and not the other.

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Yeah, I know like Dawkins. It is the future part I don’t get. How can one have feelings about a future person? It is so - not sure the word I am looking for - religious-like?

chezlaw · #**122** 01-11-2007, 09:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Suppose the only thing I care about is not causing harm. Then it immediately follows that I care about one and not the other.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I know like Dawkins. It is the future part I don’t get. How can one have feelings about a future person? It is so - not sure the word I am looking for - religious-like?

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ouch that hurts [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

As I said at the beginning I can't see any significant difference between a future person and a far away person but I assume you see nothing strange in not wanting to harm strangers in a far away land.

The off-chance that there may not be any future people seems irrelevent. Suppose there was a far off-country that almost certainly had people living in it. We still wouldn't agree to sterilise them all even though there's an off-chance there's no one there, would we?

chez

RJT · #**123** 01-12-2007, 12:28 AM

But there is a difference between an existing far away person and a future person. The future person does not exist. It is only a thought now. They fact they you think of them the same is irrelevant. You might equate them and that is up to you - that is a subjective choice. But they are distinct things.

luckyme · #**124** 01-12-2007, 12:36 AM

[ QUOTE ]
But there is a difference between an existing far away person and a future person. The future person does not exist. It is only a thought now. They fact they you think of them the same is irrelevant. You might equate them and that is up to you - that is a subjective choice. But they are distinct things.

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I just deposited 2M into a trust.
1M is to be paid to the person that kills the 1st person on page 100 of the NY phone book this year.
1M is to be paid to the person who kill the 1st person on page 100 of the NY phone book ( or equiv) 100 years from now.

Morally, they seem a lot alike to me, but what do you see is missing? luckyme

chezlaw · #**125** 01-12-2007, 12:46 AM

[ QUOTE ]
But there is a difference between an existing far away person and a future person. The future person does not exist. It is only a thought now. They fact they you think of them the same is irrelevant. You might equate them and that is up to you - that is a subjective choice. But they are distinct things.

[/ QUOTE ]The future person does exist, just not yet [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

chez

urnodaisy · #**126** 01-12-2007, 01:31 AM

With all due respect, the hypothetical is silly and is not worth considering.

Gobgogbog · #**127** 01-12-2007, 02:12 AM

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When I said the procedure would make everyone far happier, I should have added "except possibly not because of the 500 year consequences". In other words I meant for that downside to have the ability to negate the happiness (or satisfaction or whatever you want to call it) in some people. Otherwise the question is trivial.

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I misunderstood that, and the point of my post was that it's trivial without that. But apparently it isn't -- I think people here would not have the procedure done even in the case that having it done makes them and everyone else happier.

I have no idea how to answer the new question. If I was put on the spot and had to make the decision right now, I'd go the conservative route.

Jake (The Snake) · #**128** 01-12-2007, 06:06 AM

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This is where you make your logical error. The induced sorrow has already been taken into account in the happiness H. If it had not, the statement that this procedure will make everybody happier would not be true. The question is asked under the assumption that answering yes is +EV, and answering no is not.

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Well, couldn't answering no still yield a higher EV than answering yes? Isn't there an opportunity cost that is missed when answering yes? What about the potentially infinite happiness that results on mankind after the 600 year mark?

If your view is utilitarian in nature (you want to maximize happiness for all mankind), then I think you have to take a gamble here. The gamble is whether or not the additional happiness from saying yes outweighs the happiness that would have existed in the years 600 to the date mankind was extinct.

Albert Moulton · #**129** 01-13-2007, 01:37 AM

Should the procedure be done? No.

Never.

No amount of time.

Purposely taking an action that would knowingly make the human race extinct, however far in the future, is wrong.

Why should I care? I have kids that may have kids that may have kids, and so on. I wouldn't want them to reach the literal end of the line.

And if I didn't have kids? I wouldn't want anybody's kids to end up at the end of the line like that because of what I did even if I wasn't alive to see it.

etxel · #**130** 02-28-2007, 12:45 PM

I would trade an optimal situation for the end of human race. The time is not an issue to me. I can become sterile right now for all I can as long as that doesn't have any effect on my newly improved and life long happiness (I wouldn't miss the joy of making a family because I'm already happy because of the procedure). I don't care about my future generations or my children's generations if they don't exist.

Essentially, for simplicity

humanity without the invention:

- living people: relatively unhappy (negative)
- future generations: relatively unhappy (negative)

humanity with the invention

- living people: happy (positive)
- future generations: (0) (they don't exist so they have no feeling)

So, therefore, without the invention we have a negative situation and with the invention we have a positive one.

By happy here I mean all those good things that were posted in the initial post by Sklansky.