Re:Pascal's Scams (2012)
by Elextric on Wednesday July 16, 2025 @11:13AM
(#44583190)
Let me reframe it. Among these trillions of people, there will be many who are 99% similar to you. Wouldn't you want that version of yourself to live a great life?
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By that kind of logic, I’m actually a Boltzmann brain floating alone in an infinite void, so I don’t have to worry about anyone but myself.
You can certainly rationalize anything, but I fail to see what help that is to us.
"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism [radical skepticism] is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. [...] I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther."
Hume
> Wouldn't you want that version of yourself to live a great life?
The biggest positive change you can make, even for future generations, is to uplevel the people who are alive today.
Re:Pascal's Scams (2012)
by BobaFloutist on Wednesday July 16, 2025 @09:07PM
(#44588665)
Sure! It's just not actually reasonably possible to predict what will lead to that outcome, whereas I can sorta (badly) predict what will make me happy tomorrow, my wife happy next week, and what will best improve conditions for my current fellow citizens of the world.