Comments on: It Is Good To Exist http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html Overcoming Bias is economist Robin Hanson’s blog, on honesty, signaling, disagreement, forecasting, and the far future. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:06:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Hedonic Treader http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-460294 Hedonic Treader Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:32:00 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-460294 Even three years after you wrote this, thank you for pointing it out! It's also worth noting that no one addressed this point. Imagine you have the option to create a universe that is devoid from sentient life, or a universe that contains 1 trillion happy people, and one child that suffers from pain for three months and then dies agonizingly. Which one is the moral choice? I say creating the empty universe is the moral choice - no matter how much happiness is experienced by *other* sentients, the preventable suffering of that one child is unjustifiable, since it will never experience the happiness that is supposed to "outbalance" its suffering. And if eternalism is true, that suffering is timelessly real and can never be undone. That's the strongest case for negative utilitarianism, and this is why I disagree with Robin when he writes (three years ago): "Just as a possible world where humanity becomes extinct in the next ten years seems morally far worse than one where it continues on for millions of years, a possible world where humanity or anything like it had never existed seems worse than both." How many additional sentients will we force to suffer involuntarily so that *others* can be happy? Even three years after you wrote this, thank you for pointing it out! It’s also worth noting that no one addressed this point.

Imagine you have the option to create a universe that is devoid from sentient life, or a universe that contains 1 trillion happy people, and one child that suffers from pain for three months and then dies agonizingly. Which one is the moral choice? I say creating the empty universe is the moral choice – no matter how much happiness is experienced by *other* sentients, the preventable suffering of that one child is unjustifiable, since it will never experience the happiness that is supposed to “outbalance” its suffering. And if eternalism is true, that suffering is timelessly real and can never be undone. That’s the strongest case for negative utilitarianism, and this is why I disagree with Robin when he writes (three years ago):

“Just as a possible world where humanity becomes extinct in the next ten years seems morally far worse than one where it continues on for millions of years, a possible world where humanity or anything like it had never existed seems worse than both.”

How many additional sentients will we force to suffer involuntarily so that *others* can be happy?

]]> By: Robert Wiblin http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-440749 Robert Wiblin Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:05:12 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-440749 This is a response to many points people in the comments threat a making: http://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/mistakes-with-nonexistent-people/ And to plug myself as well: http://robertwiblin.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/no_existent_people/ This is a response to many points people in the comments threat a making:

http://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/mistakes-with-nonexistent-people/

And to plug myself as well:

http://robertwiblin.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/no_existent_people/

]]> By: Chris http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411191 Chris Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:20:20 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411191 Robin's initial post goes from an emotional but incoherent statement : "So you can hurt me by changing such things, even if I never experience your hurt" to an unrelated discussion on multiverses and morality. No possible discussion of the desires of me and all my potential mini-mes in the blackberry multiverse can have tuppence worth of value in a discussion on morality. We may indeed want Father Christmas to exist. Does that make our wish moral ? I may indeed wish, along with all my potential mini-mes, that a certain potential but non existant political figure on the planet Zorg continue to not exist. Does that make that wish moral ? By all means, those wishes are meaningful, within the cohort of me and my clones, but the invocation of 'potential existence' and 'multiple universes' adds nothing to the fact that what is meaningful for dull old singular me in this world is not necessarily moral for the dull old singular society in which I evolve. Robin’s initial post goes from an emotional but incoherent statement : “So you can hurt me by changing such things, even if I never experience your hurt” to an unrelated discussion on multiverses and morality.
No possible discussion of the desires of me and all my potential mini-mes in the blackberry multiverse can have tuppence worth of value in a discussion on morality. We may indeed want Father Christmas to exist. Does that make our wish moral ? I may indeed wish, along with all my potential mini-mes, that a certain potential but non existant political figure on the planet Zorg continue to not exist. Does that make that wish moral ?
By all means, those wishes are meaningful, within the cohort of me and my clones, but the invocation of ‘potential existence’ and ‘multiple universes’ adds nothing to the fact that what is meaningful for dull old singular me in this world is not necessarily moral for the dull old singular society in which I evolve.

]]> By: steven http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411190 steven Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:39:45 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411190 I agree with the above points. <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30975" rel="nofollow">obligatory Onion article</a> I agree with the above points.

obligatory Onion article

]]> By: Corzich http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411189 Corzich Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:22:14 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411189 It frustrates me that people are missing an essential point: suicide is different from never existing in the first place. Suicide has as a precondition of existing in the first place, and experiencing pain, thus putting you already in the negative. Suicide also includes risks of unpleasant consequences (pain, failing and waking up in a hospital or asylum, inflicting emotional anguish, maybe even hell for some belief systems). In short, it's inconvenient, and it is possible to regret existing and ever being born without wishing to undergo the inconvenience of suicide. Many people go on living out of inertia. Call us lazy, call us cowards, but don't call us inconsistent or illogical. It frustrates me that people are missing an essential point: suicide is different from never existing in the first place. Suicide has as a precondition of existing in the first place, and experiencing pain, thus putting you already in the negative. Suicide also includes risks of unpleasant consequences (pain, failing and waking up in a hospital or asylum, inflicting emotional anguish, maybe even hell for some belief systems). In short, it’s inconvenient, and it is possible to regret existing and ever being born without wishing to undergo the inconvenience of suicide. Many people go on living out of inertia. Call us lazy, call us cowards, but don’t call us inconsistent or illogical.

]]> By: Drake http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411188 Drake Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:47:13 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411188 A less methodologically-based objection to Robin's idea (due to Sam Kinison) is <a href="http://metaandmeta.typepad.com/metaandmeta/2007/10/the-utility-of-.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>. A less methodologically-based objection to Robin’s idea (due to Sam Kinison) is here.

]]> By: Ben Jones http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411187 Ben Jones Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:52:47 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411187 TGGP - thanks for the link, interesting stuff. mtraven - I think we're in agreement here. If you give weight to nonexistent entities, you must realise that there are an infinite number of them and you start getting in trouble very quickly. If and when I have children, it won't be an act of mercy. It'll be an effort by my genes to reproduce themselves and give themselves the best chance of continuing to reproduce into the future. Questions like 'Dad, would I have been better off not existing?' will be met with a cuff round the head. I would hope that the alien god would have something to say about any genes that cause their survival machine to consider non-existence a better option than existence! Like the man say - we're protein computers 'designed' to make more protein computers. Anything else is fluff. TGGP – thanks for the link, interesting stuff. mtraven – I think we’re in agreement here. If you give weight to nonexistent entities, you must realise that there are an infinite number of them and you start getting in trouble very quickly.

If and when I have children, it won’t be an act of mercy. It’ll be an effort by my genes to reproduce themselves and give themselves the best chance of continuing to reproduce into the future. Questions like ‘Dad, would I have been better off not existing?’ will be met with a cuff round the head.

I would hope that the alien god would have something to say about any genes that cause their survival machine to consider non-existence a better option than existence! Like the man say – we’re protein computers ‘designed’ to make more protein computers. Anything else is fluff.

]]> By: mitchell porter http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411186 mitchell porter Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:29:16 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411186 Caledonian: "If you're not careful to use words specifically and precisely, you end up saying nothing at all... which of course is the desired endstate for quite a lot of people, evidently including Our Hosts." Oh, evidently! Our hosts have <i>evidently</i> made those hundreds of posts over the past year because they had nothing to say and wanted to say it. Dude, go have a cold shower until you stop hallucinating. Caledonian: “If you’re not careful to use words specifically and precisely, you end up saying nothing at all… which of course is the desired endstate for quite a lot of people, evidently including Our Hosts.”

Oh, evidently! Our hosts have evidently made those hundreds of posts over the past year because they had nothing to say and wanted to say it. Dude, go have a cold shower until you stop hallucinating.

]]> By: TGGP http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411185 TGGP Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:05:46 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411185 I think when you encounter people loosely using words to say nothing at all, you should respond with scat. A ska-dee-bop gah-doodly-boo! I think when you encounter people loosely using words to say nothing at all, you should respond with scat.

A ska-dee-bop gah-doodly-boo!

]]> By: Caledonian http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/it-is-good-to-e.html#comment-411184 Caledonian Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:55:49 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/12/it-is-good-to-exist.html#comment-411184 <blockquote>I assume in this context that 'hurt' is to be understood more broadly as 'hurting one's interests', i.e. harming.</blockquote> Conclusions cannot be more precise than the means used to reach them; this is especially important when dealing with natural language, because of its immense ambiguity and general lack of precision. If you're not careful to use words specifically and precisely, you end up saying nothing at all... which of course is the desired endstate for quite a lot of people, evidently including Our Hosts.

I assume in this context that ‘hurt’ is to be understood more broadly as ‘hurting one’s interests’, i.e. harming.

Conclusions cannot be more precise than the means used to reach them; this is especially important when dealing with natural language, because of its immense ambiguity and general lack of precision.

If you’re not careful to use words specifically and precisely, you end up saying nothing at all… which of course is the desired endstate for quite a lot of people, evidently including Our Hosts.

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