A Million Save Two Utils-Ten Thousand Lose A Hundred
I think in such a circumstance pure utilitarianism breaks down. You shouldn't just multiply and thus come to the conclusion that the first option is better. Not once the downside to one group is very high versus very low to the other. The problem of course arises if the decision is arrived at via people's votes. Once the downside to those harmed reaches a certain point, adding more people who will very slightly benefit from that downside should not swing the decision. The problem, of course is that if the decision depends on people's votes, the wrong side will win unless half of the people who stand to gain a little, vote against their "interests". They often do do that, either because they evaluated the situation incorrectly, they were lied to by experts who persuaded them that the other side was better for them, they already had more than enough utils so it was no big deal to be magnanimous (eg celebrities) or they simply wanted to be nice.
But often less than half vote this way, especially if the small group who are hurt are people they don't like. Yet another problem with "democracy". "One person, one vote" sounds nice. But is it really a good thing if a voter who very slightly prefers x completely negates a voter (or someone who can't vote) who desperately needs NOT x?
I feel you should reframe this if you want engagement because i tried as hard as i could and i couldn't understand what you mean, what you are hinting at, what you imply here.
What are you talking about?
Yeah, I tried reading OP about 3 times and was going to post asking if I was the only one who didn't have the slightest clue what it was going on about, but then I saw a squirrel or something and forgot.
I think in such a circumstance pure utilitarianism breaks down. You shouldn't just multiply and thus come to the conclusion that the first option is better. Not once the downside to one group is very high versus very low to the other. The problem of course arises if the decision is arrived at via people's votes. Once the downside to those harmed reaches a certain point, adding more people who will very slightly benefit from that downside should not swing the decision. The problem, of course is t
I think this David is talking about a common problem in utilitarianism.
For example, you have a TV show where an innocent person is tortured to death. At some point, if enough people enjoy the show, strict utilitarianism says this is a good situation.
Peter Singer is a famous utilitarian philosopher who is one of many to tackle such problems. He writes very good books for popular audiences and there are interviews with him on YouTube.
Politically, this is why almost nobody favors pure democracy, where we could vote for the torture show. Sometimes you'll still have a minority that gets screwed really badly to slightly benefit the majority.
I think this David is talking about a common problem in utilitarianism.
For example, you have a TV show where an innocent person is tortured to death. At some point, if enough people enjoy the show, strict utilitarianism says this is a good situation.
Peter Singer is a famous utilitarian philosopher who is one of many to tackle such problems. He writes very good books for popular audiences and there are interviews with him on YouTube.
Politically, this is why almost nobody favors pure democrac
What you describe is not a problem ot utilitarianism imho. Utilitarians will torture, maim, mutilate, rape if it's for the "common good". If you even start thinking there might be occasions when that's bad, you are denying utilitarianism can be a good moral framework.
Which usually happens around age 16, but for some people it never happen.
In utilitarianism , definitionally NOTHING except a decrease of aggregate utility is inherently bad, nothing at all, ever, no exceptions. Even imagining something could/should be forbidden regardless of consequences is a full denial of all utilitarian principles.
There are more complicated versions like Singer's preference utilitarianism that attempt to deal with this.
Others say they are consequentialists rather than utilitarians.
You can also borrow from virtue ethics and say things like, it is ultimately not +ev for people to enjoy torture. Something like, eating doughnuts every day feels good but is bad overall. But then you have to think a lot about what actual utility is without easy answers.
I'm not a utilitarian either, but there are more sophisticated approaches. I think it's good for kind of a first pass on things. A policy that creates a big surplus in utility is probably good. But there will be exceptions.
and ES2 leapfrogs all previous posters in sklansky's IQ rankings
decided to put OP through Claude to give me a taste for what was going on here. query was simply "what is this saying"
no joke, i got the message "Claude is thinking deeply... stand by" with a 5 second lag which i have literally never seen before, even when submitting 200 page PDF documents and asking questions about it
i couldn't read past the first sentence of OP so decided to put it through Claude to give me a taste for what was going on here. query was simply "what is this saying"
no joke, i got the message "Claude is thinking deeply... stand by" with a 5 second lag which i have literally never seen before, even when submitting 200 page PDF documents and asking questions about it
Lol. Results?
Spoiler
This is discussing a critique of pure utilitarian decision-making and majority-rule democracy. Let me break down the key points:
The core argument is about situations where an action would:
-Severely harm a small group of people
-Provide small benefits to a large group of people
Even if the total utility (multiplying number of people × benefit/harm) suggests the action is "good," the author argues this calculation breaks down when the harm to individuals becomes very severe.
The author sees this as particularly problematic in democratic voting because:
-The larger group can always outvote the smaller group
-Most people vote in their self-interest, even for tiny personal gains
-This can lead to severely harmful outcomes for minorities
They note that sometimes people do vote against their immediate self-interest due to:
-Misunderstanding the situation
-Being misled by experts
-Having enough resources to be generous
-Moral considerations
The conclusion questions whether "one person, one vote" is truly fair when comparing:
-One voter who slightly prefers an option
-Another voter who would be devastated by that same option
It's essentially arguing for some form of weighted consideration where severe negative impacts should carry more weight than minor positive ones, even if they affect fewer people - a critique of both pure utilitarianism and simple majority rule.
Did a single person read just the title and have understand what he meant?
Yeah this. And even the title is pretty unclear. What does "A Million Save Two Utils-Ten Thousand Lose A Hundred" mean? I don't understand what those numbers represent, or even what "save" and "lose" means for that matter.
I mean, I figured out it was probably something to do with utilitarianism, but not specifically what.
Yeah this. And even the title is pretty unclear. What does "A Million Save Two Utils-Ten Thousand Lose A Hundred" mean? I don't understand what those numbers represent, or even what "save" and "lose" means for that matter.
I mean, I figured out it was probably something to do with utilitarianism, but not specifically what.
oh UTIL is a unit of measurement (that requires several assumptions to be defined) of utility.
https://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.....
the title was saying "you can get situations where a lot of people each gain very little, in exchange of very high costs paid by a small minority".
1M X 2 = 2M. 10K X 100 = 1M
if 2 is "I gain 10k USD" and -100 is "I get raped every day for 3 years" , for utilitarians the above is not only moral, but morally mandatory (in the sense that you would be allowed to use force to guarantee that result happen, in utilitarianism)
Oh ok, that makes it clearer, thanks.
Yeah this. And even the title is pretty unclear. What does "A Million Save Two Utils-Ten Thousand Lose A Hundred" mean? I don't understand what those numbers represent, or even what "save" and "lose" means for that matter.
I mean, I figured out it was probably something to do with utilitarianism, but not specifically what.
Yeah the title is virtually incoherent. The overall point that ev isn’t the only factor is a sort of arguing against a straw man. Nobody thinks the average person would be better off flipping for a trillion than taking a guaranteed 100 billion.
Yeah the title is virtually incoherent. The overall point that ev isn’t the only factor is a sort of arguing against a straw man. Nobody thinks the average person would be better off flipping for a trillion than taking a guaranteed 100 billion.
that's not the topic, it's not about decreasing marginal utility.
the point is would you kill 100 people to give free electrical utility bills to x people for a year (you can decide the x).
there is some x in any utilitarian model that justifies the 100 assassinations, and not only justifies them, makes them morally mandatory.
this is why utilitarians are actually moral monsters.
which is why COVID management was morally bankrupt. doesn't matter what your model says, you don't sacrifice any utility of children no matter how many elder lives you think you can save.
He's somehow getting more incoherent with age.
that's not the topic, it's not about decreasing marginal utility.
the point is would you kill 100 people to give free electrical utility bills to x people for a year (you can decide the x).
there is some x in any utilitarian model that justifies the 100 assassinations, and not only justifies them, makes them morally mandatory.
this is why utilitarians are actually moral monsters.
which is why COVID management was morally bankrupt. doesn't matter what your model says, you don't sacrifice any utility
Lordy, making children wear face masks to save some old people makes you a moral monster. Yesterday it was that face masks are emasculating. Bro, show me on the doll where the surgeon touched you.
Yes it is. The math is the same and he's arguing against a naive calculation that nobody really beleives is all you should take into account. Maximizing the EV of a particular function might not always be optimal..... ok but nobody suggested it always was.
oh UTIL is a unit of measurement (that requires several assumptions to be defined) of utility.
https://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.....
the title was saying "you can get situations where a lot of people each gain very little, in exchange of very high costs paid by a small minority".
1M X 2 = 2M. 10K X 100 = 1M
if 2 is "I gain 10k USD" and -100 is "I get raped every day for 3 years" , for utilitarians the above is not on
So you would agree with me that if the harm a policy can cause a small number of people is great, and the utilitarian calculation doesn't reach the threshold of enough people who are very slightly saddened by if the policy is witheld to "justify" the policy according to utilitarianism calculation, then adding more of those slightly saddened persons should have no effect. In other words, if the title referenced only 100,000 who lost two utils, the utilitarian would pick the other policy that helped the 10,000 greatly harmed. I say that moving the number of people to a million shouldn't matter. That was point one.
The second point was that even if the utilitarian comes down on helping the 10,000 rather than the 100,000, regular people might not. That ten to one advantage in votes will often win the election even if the utilitarian (and nice people) don't think it should.
