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by Zeren
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Animal welfarePhilosophyInvertebrate welfarePopulation ethicsUtilitarianism
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With the following assumptions, if we aim for increasing total utility, why  would we still choose to design a future with many humans instead of many many bugs?

  • Sentient animals’ well-being matters. (Even with fewer utility.)
  • At least one kind of bug is sentient.
  • Well-being in animals can be positive.
  • It will be possible in the future to create and sustain an artificial environment through a dedicated AI, where bugs will thrive, especially considering that future bugs may be digital beings.
  • Humans or similarly complex intelligent beings are immensely more prone to pain than bug-like beings.

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NickLaing

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To keep it really simple from my perspective only

  1. Because I don't aim for total increasing utility. Other things matter besides pleasure and pain.
  2. Because I think the probability that bugs feel pain in a meaningful way is so low that it constitutes a pascalls mugging
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Alexander Herwix 🔸6
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I love this question and I am looking forward to see what hedonic utilitarians come up with here. This has similar vibes to computronium thought experiments but better. Thanks for pointing this question out to me :)

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Zeren1
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I’ve just noticed (should have asked LLMs earlier :) this has already been suggested by others as a form of repugnant conclusion problem in totalist views. 

For reference, linking Jeff Sebo’s paper below but he is not the only one who talked about it.

https://philpapers.org/rec/SEBTRC

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