Lots of discussion about people misinterpreting what barely worth living means on the individual utility axis, which I do think could be part of the issue. I also believe that there is a hidden assumption most people make here: that all the lives barely worth living are “similar” (or alternatively: it’s easier to imagine 10000 people being similar than 10). I think there is another dimension in population utility functions that most people care about—the diversity of the world. It’s easy to imagine the very good lives as a variety of distinct lives and the millions of just barely good lives all being the same sort of potato farmer. If you clarified that all of the barely worth living lives were extremely different, and gave people time to reflect on and believe that it is possible for 1 million lives to be very different, I wonder if many people would feel the conclusion is less repugnant. Whether or not having diversity be an input in your population utility function is a separate question.
Also, I found your post about utility functions to be helpful, thanks.
Lots of discussion about people misinterpreting what barely worth living means on the individual utility axis, which I do think could be part of the issue. I also believe that there is a hidden assumption most people make here: that all the lives barely worth living are “similar” (or alternatively: it’s easier to imagine 10000 people being similar than 10). I think there is another dimension in population utility functions that most people care about—the diversity of the world. It’s easy to imagine the very good lives as a variety of distinct lives and the millions of just barely good lives all being the same sort of potato farmer. If you clarified that all of the barely worth living lives were extremely different, and gave people time to reflect on and believe that it is possible for 1 million lives to be very different, I wonder if many people would feel the conclusion is less repugnant. Whether or not having diversity be an input in your population utility function is a separate question.
Also, I found your post about utility functions to be helpful, thanks.