Rule 1 of thinking in infinity: results may be counterintuitive and this does not mean you can generalize that surprising result back into the finite world.
The fact is that there is more than 1 person being tortured currently in the real world who will be tortured until their life ends. Making this finite makes the answer obvious in the other direction, which is why they chose to frame it in terms of infinity, to make themselves seem smarter for understanding the “unintuitive” answer
I think i just disagree with the utilitarian mindset. Trying to chart and compare everyone's happiness like this, I don't believe it can effectively be extrapolated into this situation. If it's a pure mathematical problem, sure, you're correct no torture! But I don't follow this model at all.
If we're dealing with these infinities, we don't even need to torture him. We can make him prick his finger every day for the rest of eternity, and technically that's still -infinite utils. But no one actually cares that much about this person, do they? If I were that person I wouldn't give a fuck. Diabetics do that shit for free!
If we’re dealing with these infinities, we don’t even need to torture him. We can make him prick his finger every day for the rest of eternity, and technically that’s still -infinite utils.
Definitely an interesting addition to the thought experiment, and I think I'd have to agree with you. One dude can take the finger-prick hell if it brings about FALGSC for the rest of us. So then the interesting question is, how bad does this torture need to be before we'd say it's probably not worth the solution of finite problems in our world? I don't have a good answer for it.
Another aspect is that the "torture" in the initial framing can be a lot of things. What I imagine when someone says that is probably different from what you imagine. So we'd have to define exactly what kind of torture we're talking about.
Yeah I think one of the major problems with utilitarianism is that it pushes ethics back onto refining the accuracy of a model. So the result is that the people who naively follow it (as in, people like me who have never actually engaged with the literature) will always be able to justify spending more time refining that model. This is a super common problem with online debate bro types.
But even if it’s not a great mental tool for individuals, when you’re talking about large organizations I’m not sure there’s an alternative other than... just guessing and letting the outcomes arise however they happen to.
Also, there are major issues with how exactly you define the good that you're supposedly maximizing for, as well as the fact that if you follow it to its logical conclusion, you would need to understand the ramifications of an action unto the end of eternity in order to actually judge it
The other problem with utilitarianism was very elegantly pointed out by @Chapo_is_Red . "Who the fuck made this button?"
A lot of utilitarian ideas tend to accept some false dichotomy or some condition as absolute. Like "is torture ok if it stops terrorist attacks?" But wait, why are terrorists attacking in the first place? And why are we assuming the torture will work? etc etc.
Absolutely. Oddly enough, as a tool to help humans think about the world, utilitarianism doesn’t seem to have a ton of utility
there is deontology which is just superior in every ways and that's why we use it in the medical world, imagine the nightmare of an actually utilitarian surgeon, coming to eldery patients to steal their kidneys
also why start with happiness or pleasure, if there is one thing the Stoics can teach us is that even Epicurianism isn't fail safe and we should really consider our own nature as social animals first, this doesn't mean serving for the death machine but taking seriously that we only thrive as an instrumental part of a greater whole, not seeking happiness and pleasure (also those are kinda bourgeois and liberal but that's for another day)
I think i just disagree with the utilitarian mindset. Trying to chart and compare everyone’s happiness like this, I don’t believe it can effectively be extrapolated into this situation. If it’s a pure mathematical problem, sure, you’re correct no torture! But I don’t follow this model at all.
Relevant comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-04-03
we can write the utilities from both outcomes as an inequality. the sophomoric utilitarian might simply write this as utils from current world on the left side, and utils from current world + utils from erasing unhappiness - utils of perpetual suffering.
however, this model neglects something very important. advanced utilitarians may realize we are lacking the probability of masochism. indeed, some people may actually enjoy this eternal suffering. current studies estimate that 1-5% of the population are masochists. we will take the average as 3% of the population being masochists. assume that torture for the median human is more painful than it is pleasurable for the masochists.following conventions, we assign median human -1000 util/time and the masochist +100 util/time. we can then rewrite the right side of the inequality as follows
utils from current world + utils from eliminating unhappiness - ( 1000 utils/time)(0.97)(infinity (time) ) + (100 utils /time) (0.03)(infinity (time)).
we can then reduce the infinity terms to simply infinity as infinity times any number is equal to infinity. the infinities cancel, and we are left with
utils from current world + utils from eliminating unhappiness
which is necessarily bigger than the left side utils from current world.
therefore, we push the button.
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(if you mention indeterminate in the comments your nerd)
is infinite torture even theoretically possible though? I think about whenever I feel pain, it always hurts at first, but then I eventually get used to it as a "new normal".
It's one of the blessings/curses that make socialism hard, people automatically adjust to their new conditions as normal. Poor people adjust to their worse living circumstances, and rich people adjust to theirs, so that the respective suffering/joy they would feel is blunted after a while. This blunting of joy is basically the reason why the rich will always have infinite appetites for more stuff.
I also think there's a floor on how much suffering can be blunted, once poor people start experiencing death, rape, etc. I think the floor breaks. People in general also hate losing more than they love winning, the pain of losing $50 is greater than the joy of finding $50. So I think this blunting is much stronger for the wealthy's joy, than for the poor's suffering
so yea I personally don't think infinite torture is possible even theoretically without killing someone, although it would still be pretty damn bad
I guess you're not a christian? Something something it's the exquisite end of a life full of sins so not so bad all things considered, at least you get to hang out with the cool and hot guys
my problem with all thought experiments, this scenario as you made is never gonna happen and that fucking matters because that means it's a false dichotomy, we never have the foresight necessary for perfect decision so let's concentrate on that, on who we are, rather than imagine ourselves as gods looking from the mountain tops
Imagine a button on it is written in bold red, but surprisingly friendly letters, "Communism", when you press it nothing happens but you feel better for having done your part.
There is also a : :gui-better: and a mass of people outside, but to bring in communism you would have to talk mean to capitalists, it is a lot of work and you might feel exhausted.
Which button do you press?
as Marx the point is not to press the button but to change the conditions that brought it about
What would Picard do?
:picard-excited:
or
:picard-annoyed:
Chakotay: [something incomprehensible and incredibly racist]
Somewhere between "modern imperialism" and "magic Omelas button" there is apparently a point where these people can be flipped.
What if there was a button that could solve every problem, but it also made one person into a gelatinous interdimensional hug monster that just won't stop hugging and also it's Kanye West? Have you considered the utilitarian implications!?
As a sensible pragmatic type that is capable of comprimise, I would push the button, but only if it lasted for half of eternity.
