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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

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?

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robertwiblin's avatar

This is a response to many points people in the comments threat a making:

http://meteuphoric.wordpres...

And to plug myself as well:

http://robertwiblin.wordpre...

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