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you've lost me at > Given these two populations, equality is a good thing: lower the standard of living of the first million people ever so slightly, and raise
by volkk 6y ago
you've lost me at
> Given these two populations, equality is a good thing: lower the standard of living of the first million people ever so slightly, and raise the standard of the second group to match the first.
I'm trying to understand why you would repeat this step if you've lowered the standard of the first million ever so slightly but have already matched the miserable million to be that of the happy million?
- impendia 6y agoRepeat steps 2 and 3: in addition to the now combined group of two million people, assume that you have an additional group of two million people living difficult lives. Now repeat step 3, and so on, until you've doubled the population many times.
- volkk 6y agoWhy cant you add a million happy people instead? or both? I understand this is a philosophical thought experiment, but of course if you keep diluting substance X with more and more of substance Y, you'll eventually get mostly substance Y...right? Is it impossible for a society to add 1 happy person for every unhappy person?
- impendia 6y ago> if you keep diluting substance X with more and more of substance Y, you'll eventually get mostly substance Y. Exactly, that's the paradox. Parfit's argument stipulates a series of steps each of which seems to make the world better, but where the end result seems to be worse than what you started with. Hopefully, we can avoid the paradox, and instead grow in such a way that everyone thrives and we mitigate the negative effects on the environment.