• ApfelstrudelWAKASAGI@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    You would need a crazy low probability of a lunatic or a mass murderer being down the line to justify not to kill one person

    Edit: Sum(2^n (1-p)^(n-1) p) ~ Sum(2^n p) for p small. So you’d need a p= (2×2^32 -2) ~ 1/(8 billion) chance of catching a psycho for expected values to be equal. I.e. there is only a single person tops who would decide to kill all on earth.

    • ChrisGrantsBrownlow@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      You don’t even need a lunatic or mass murderer. As you say, the logical choice is to kill one person. For the next person, the logical choice is to kill two people, and so on.

      • ApfelstrudelWAKASAGI@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        1 year ago

        It does create the funny paradox where, up to a certain point, a rational utilitarian would choose to kill and a rational mass murderer trying to maximise deaths would choose to double it.

            • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Doubling action forever minimizes human deaths.

              Unless someone decide to hit kill. In that case, it’s them doing it. I’m invalidating the argument that pre-empting imaginary future mass murders justifies killing one person today.

              • ApfelstrudelWAKASAGI@feddit.de
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                Idk which moral system you operate under, but I’m concerned with minimising human suffering. That implies hitting kill because chances of a mass murderer are too high not to. You also don’t follow traffic laws to a t, but exercise caution because you don’t really care whose fault it ends up being, you want to avoid bad outcomes (in this case the extinction of humankind).

                • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  My moral system somehow does not chose to kill people through action against an imagined threat and is therefore objectively superior as is it not susceptible to hostile memetic manipulation (Molloch, Pascal’s wager, Pascal’s mugging, basilisks, social hysteria etc.) and is capable of escaping false choices and other contrived scenarios, breaking premise and the rules of the game as needed to obtain the desired outcome.

                  • ApfelstrudelWAKASAGI@feddit.de
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    Even if your moral system solves those “problems”, you just “solved” them by substituting the obvious and logical base of utility through personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is no inherent good, unlike utility, if people are unhappy/“feel bad”, it doesn’t matter how personally responsible everyone is being, that world is still a shit place.

                    Also, the threat isn’t imagined. I can assure you that there are a lot more than one person on earth who would choose to kill as many people as possible if given the option.

    • m0darn@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Well what about the fact that after 34 people the entire population is tied to the tracks. What are the chances that one person out of 35 wants to destroy humanity?

      Also thing the entire human population to the tracks is going to cause some major logistical problems, how are you going to feed them all?

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Oh come on. A trolley is not going to have the momentum to kill that many people nor would the machinery make it through. The gears and whatnot would be totally gummed up after like 20 or so people.

      • ApfelstrudelWAKASAGI@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        I just calculated the sum from n=0 to 32 (because 2^33>current global population). And that calculation implies that the chance of catching someone willing to kill all of humanity would have to be lower than 1/8 billion for the expected value of doubling it to be larger than just killing one person.

        • m0darn@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah I think I was in a stupor when I commented. I don’t think I even tried to understand your comment. My apologies. But now that I am trying, I am struggling to understand the notation.