David Sklansky and the Bible Baby

[RayBornert]

allow me to critique your setup:

as compared to the bible example, there is a much higher chance that every word of all of william's plays could be reconstructed from the minds of the worlds' actor population. i understand that you want to frame your question such that the document itself is an erasure point; but if you really want to represent that then imagine the extent to which that knowledge has disseminated throughout mankind over several centuries; the question is easier for me to answer if you allow me these options:

a) save william from abortion (i.e. time travel is involved)
b) save random baby

now we have apples and apples - 1 life known to produce something significant and 1 random life. i'd save william.

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secondly, if you asked the scientists of the world to reverse extrapolate the foundation of what they currently know, they'd be able to do it; i'll grant you that they might not be able to recover all of the personal editorials or opinions of the authors but they'd recover the axioms and theories and arguments and equations for sure. but again, i know that you want to frame the question in such a way so as to achieve a clean erasure point and so i'll do the same thing as above by viewing it this way:

a) save newton and leibniz from abortion
b) save random baby

this is nearly the same as the first but you've doubled the value proposition. i'd save the smart guys.

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and lastly (using the reasoning above) i'd choose not to abort the promising scientist. the birth events for the scientist and the baby are only 2 decades apart and so the problem is much like choosing which baby to abort.

all things considered, you select the person with more proven value (as cruel as that sounds), for the same reasons you'd not kill a mother whose life was threatened by pregnancy.

ray

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
If humans are worth so little why have emergency rooms at all? Just let the gravely injured fend for themselves and spend all that money making the healthy people a little more happy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Saving a life is a major increase in happiness. It's hard to provide such a signficant "happiness bonus" to a healthy person.

And you aren't overvaluing human life here - you're just undervaluing human happiness. You're talking about a huge increase in human happiness, the happiness of 60 million people. And a tiny loss of life, one person in 6 billion.

Would you follow this reasoning along and make 60 million people miserable in order to save one life?

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
But really, its just arrogant to believe one is more logical than the other- its a values question and some of us are more utilitarian is all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither is inherently more logical, but I believe most who would choose RLL and RRL are ultimately inconsistent.

First, the question is about more than progress, particularly where Shakespeare is concerned (it may be about happiness, for example). Second, it's not a question of "which do you value more" but "how much do you value each?" The first question was phrased such that one must value even the minimum of life above even the maximum of art to go right. The second question was phrased such that one must value even the minimum of life above even the maximum of progress to go right. For someone to choose right in both cases implies that they value the minimum of life above the maximum of anything, life at any cost. That is at minimum an extreme point of view with disturbing implications.

[madnak]

I know that neither situation is particularly realistic, but I'm trying to express certain values. The problem is that I don't want both situations to involve a life (except in the final scenario, where I'm specifically looking at the value of a baby's life). Perhaps it's the difference between going back in time and saving Newton's work or saving the baby's life, but if you stick life into the Newton/Shakespeare mix there's trouble.

[RayBornert]

[ QUOTE ]
I know that neither situation is particularly realistic, but I'm trying to express certain values. The problem is that I don't want both situations to involve a life (except in the final scenario, where I'm specifically looking at the value of a baby's life). Perhaps it's the difference between going back in time and saving Newton's work or saving the baby's life, but if you stick life into the Newton/Shakespeare mix there's trouble.

[/ QUOTE ]

i'm focusing on your skill at constructing a well accepted erasure point; these types of questions are only as good as the described erasure point(s); you drew the question and asked us to answer it. my response is based upon that fact that i have issues with the construction of the question.

the occam's razor approach would couch the erasure point upon the life of the individual from which sprang the knowledge you want to erase.

technically speaking, your example as constructed involves many more deaths than just william in that you really would need to visit all libraries and film vaults and computers and people where knowledge of william was stored and perform an erasure such that only a single book remained.

i don't grant you the privilege of ignorning your way beyond that many lives. at a very minimum you have to demand the life of william.

ray

[madnak]

Someone will have a problem with any concrete version of the situation, unfortunately. I'm not sure if David's recommendation to be more abstract represents the best way to express my point, but I suppose it would prevent people from arguing the details.

How about a total lack of artistic achievement for the next 20 years? Would that work for you as the first example?

[RayBornert]

[ QUOTE ]
Someone will have a problem with any concrete version of the situation, unfortunately. I'm not sure if David's recommendation to be more abstract represents the best way to express my point, but I suppose it would prevent people from arguing the details.

How about a total lack of artistic achievement for the next 20 years? Would that work for you as the first example?

[/ QUOTE ]

what is your motive for wanting to weigh the two things in the balance?

ray

[madnak]

To point out that it's unrealistic to assume every human life has infinite value.

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
You definitely can place a value on human life. It's just something we don't like to think about.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree, though I'd pick LRL. People won't miss Shakespeare because art is still being created at an astonishing rate (and Shakespeare is more often a torturous English assignment than something read for recreation).

[Dot_the_Bot]

Your question is only good for determining *which* people value more. That you are using it to draw conclusions on *how much* is illogical.