The species vs infinity

[Vyraeth]

Your attitude is the sort held by people who never expect to be on the wrong end of it. If some aliens showed up and started slaughtering humanity, and explained their action by saying "great, more breathing room!" and "when it comes down to My Species expanding out and thriving onto other worlds, other species are Shit Out of Luck.", I doubt you'd appreciate the turnabout.

Except that in your proposal, the aliens decide to eradicate Earth for more "breathing room", not because it's either their society or ours.

I didn't read a line where Solauren advocated eradicating alien species for the sake of more breathing room, he simply said that, as per the OP, if he was faced with a choice between sacrificing humanity and the rest of the galaxy, he'd choose the rest of the galaxy.

Admittedly, the idea of losing ump-teem number of sentient individuals for the sake of our own species seems horrifying, but there's a part of me that would rather see our own kind survive, despite the numbers.

It would be a very hard decision to make if I was faced with it, but right now, since I'm under no pressure, I haven't decided yet.

[Molyneux]

Admittedly, the idea of losing ump-teem number of sentient individuals for the sake of our own species seems horrifying, but there's a part of me that would rather see our own kind survive, despite the numbers.

I feel the same way; losing humanity would be a horrible thing (especially if the choice involves killing myself as well). Still, given the sheer numbers of sentient lives, all of them valuable, the only ethical option appears to be to destroy Earth and let the universe survive.

Anything else, I can only term evil.

[TimothyC]

I repeat: You are truly a horrifying person. I hope I never have to rely on you for anything ethics-based.

I'm going to guess that you also mean that I am as well as Solauren, and to that I have to say that yes, I am a generally horrifying person when it comes to ethical and moral issues. I also identify with the Operative in Serenity -

Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster.What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

[Turin]

I'm going to guess that you also mean that I am as well as Solauren, and to that I have to say that yes, I am a generally horrifying person when it comes to ethical and moral issues.

Wow, gee, you are soooo evil. You must be really, really cool or something.

The basic question here is whether or not you can extend the concepts of utilitarian ethics to non-human sentient beings. Seeing as how a hypothetical being can presumably experience suffering, and its preferences would be to continue to exist, you would have to in both scenarios choose to go with the demise of your particular group. Our world is billions of sentients, but an entire universe's worth of sentients make the lives of a few billion meaningless in comparison. The existence of our particularly universe is presumably equally trivial in the face of some infinite variety of parallel universes. I wouldn't be particularly happy about it, but there it is.

The question might be more interesting if you didn't know for certain whether the universe was populated with other sentient beings, but at that point it would essentially be wagering odds.

[RedImperator]

The morality of the decision doesn't even enter into it. Faced with a choice between annihilating my parents, my sister, my friends, my girlfriend, my colleagues, my extended family, and everyone else I've ever known and cared about (not to mention myself), and annihilating vast numbers of bug-eyed monsters and little green men I've never met and never would have met, I pick Earth. Turin's utilitarian analysis is probably correct, but pretending I could dispassionately kill myself and everyone I love because it's the ethical thing to do isn't worth the electrons it would take to do it.

The parallel universe question is more interesting because there, presumably, there are an infinite number of all those people who are, for all intents and purposes, identical to their counterparts in this universe. Then instead of "my mother versus a bunch of bug-eyed monsters" it's "the mother I know versus the infinite number of copies of my mother I've never met but know exist".

[Rye]

The morality of the decision doesn't even enter into it.

That's why I asked for what should be done, as well as what you would do, and explanations thereof.

As for my response, I would fuck up every other universe and planet. I would do it for far less, too, I would fuck them all up to save my cat, let alone the planet, and I would do the same to a whole lot of the Earth's population, too, but that's down to personal loyalty and emotional attachment, not a loftier ethical ideal.

[Turin]

Turin's utilitarian analysis is probably correct, but pretending I could dispassionately kill myself and everyone I love because it's the ethical thing to do isn't worth the electrons it would take to do it.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be happy about the choice by any stretch! Indeed, this is a totally hypothetical situation where there are only two available choices, and in the real world I would do everything in my power to create a third choice that doesn't involve the death of billions of people (and me!).

But I think I would probably go crazy if I knew I was personally responsible for the deaths of what are effectively all the sentient beings in the universe. I couldn't live with myself. I don't know, I suppose maybe I could abstract it and just try to never think about the countless now-barren worlds above my head. But I wouldn't be the same person as a result.

[KrauserKrauser]

I don't see myself going crazy after choosing Earth over the rest of the universe.

The denziens of the rest of the universe exist only in the abstract for me.

If the same powers that be deicde to make me aware of the identities of the beings I am killing, then maybe, but that's cheating. Were I to make the choice with what I know right now, I don't reallly know if I would give it much more than a second thought.

[Molyneux]

There's an interesting variant to this problem: If you don't know for certain that there are other human-like sentients in the universe, it becomes a much more tricky question.

If that were the case, I would choose to save Earth and doom the (possibly nonexistent) other sentients; definitely saving one sentient race outweighs possible saving thousands of other sentient races.

[OmegaGuy]

What the hell is with all of these Devil's Choice threads? What possible kind of cataclysm could this be? Is it some random godling who's decided to be extra-sadistic this week?

It's the Anti - Monitor, obviously.

Anyway, I would save everyone else but earth/our universe. Sure we would die but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

[Enforcer Talen]

2 situations for moral consideration:

1) There is some imminent threat to all life on Earth and the universe. You can stop this cataclysm happening to either the Earth or the rest of the universe but not both. The rest of the universe is known by this point to be teeming with intelligent and unintelligent life with many civilisations roughly equivalent to Earth. Is it more moral to look after the survival of our species at the cost of all others?

2) The cataclysm, it turns out, reverberates throughout reality, and can destroy either our universe or all parallel worlds but ours. This means you can decide to kill trillions upon trillions of alternate universes complete with humans and sapient aliens or this one. Would it be better to ensure our own survival instead of theirs?

What would you do in both of these situations, in addition to explaining what you think should be done.

Id press the kill switch on everybody else. Rule 1 is species survival.

Below species survival is nation and self survival. Im a practical person.