"What's the worst that can happen?" goes the optimistic saying. It's probably a bad question to ask anyone with a creative imagination. Let's consider the problem on an individual level: it's not really the worst that can happen, but would nonetheless be fairly bad, if you were horribly tortured for a number of years. This is one of the worse things that can realistically happen to one person in today's world.
What's the least bad, bad thing that can happen? Well, suppose a dust speck floated into your eye and irritated it just a little, for a fraction of a second, barely enough to make you notice before you blink and wipe away the dust speck.
For our next ingredient, we need a large number. Let's use 3^^^3, written in Knuth's up-arrow notation:
- 3^3 = 27.
- 3^^3 = (3^(3^3)) = 3^27 = 7625597484987.
- 3^^^3 = (3^^(3^^3)) = 3^^7625597484987 = (3^(3^(3^(... 7625597484987 times ...)))).
3^^^3 is an exponential tower of 3s which is 7,625,597,484,987 layers tall. You start with 1; raise 3 to the power of 1 to get 3; raise 3 to the power of 3 to get 27; raise 3 to the power of 27 to get 7625597484987; raise 3 to the power of 7625597484987 to get a number much larger than the number of atoms in the universe, but which could still be written down in base 10, on 100 square kilometers of paper; then raise 3 to that power; and continue until you've exponentiated 7625597484987 times. That's 3^^^3. It's the smallest simple inconceivably huge number I know.
Now here's the moral dilemma. If neither event is going to happen to you personally, but you still had to choose one or the other:
Would you prefer that one person be horribly tortured for fifty years without hope or rest, or that 3^^^3 people get dust specks in their eyes?
I think the answer is obvious. How about you?
So, I'm very late into this game, and not through all the sequences (where the answer might already be given), but still, I am very interested in your positions (probably nobody answers, but who knows):
I expect "yes" for 1, and I have to expect "yes" for 3 (I personally do not see this, but I'm bad at math, and have to trust the comments anyway). If "no" for 3, I still expect "no" for 4, per simplicity-argument, retold many times.
I'm very curious for answer on question 2. Once Eliezer quoted "the end does not justify the means", but this sentence is so very much re-interpretable that it's worthless (even if he said otherwise). But as per updating: why should the order of when information is revealed change the final result? Whatever.
When the answers of these questions are somewhere in the sequences, just ignore this, I will sooner or later get to them.
I don't think this question (or one discussed in the OP) admit meaningful answers. It seems a pity to just 'pour cold water over them' but I don't know what else to say - whatever 'moral truths' there are in the world simply don't reach as far as such absurd scenarios.
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