From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Feb 05 2009 - 08:11:31 MST
--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Mike Dougherty <msd001@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Matt Mahoney
> <matmahoney@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Suppose for US$100 you can buy a ticket that will
> instantly take you any place in the world. You have done
> this hundreds of times without incident. Now a new option is
> available. For an extra fee, you are offered the
> "painless" option, where the booth is filled with
> a narcotic knockout gas before you are slowly* crushed to
> death over a 24 hour period behind soundproofed walls. What
> is the maximum amount you would pay for this option?
> >
> > *It has to be slow because the teleportation industry
> saves money by using a smaller motor with a low gear ratio.
>
> haha... Interesting that the standard fare is instantaneous
> crush-to-death, and for an extra fee I can have the slow
> crush-to-death.
>
> If my non-self hasn't been bothered by the 100 previous
> clone-crushings, why pay more now? If the situation is reversed so
> the slow crush-to-death were cheaper, everyone would opt for the
> better value. Taken to an extreme, the best-value version of
> teleportation probably wouldn't even bother to crush the unteleported
> - you'd just be returned to the street and forced to accept that
> teleportation just doesn't work. Hey, wait a minute....
The standard fare is to be slowly crushed to death without anesthesia. Suppose you boss says you have to be in Tokyo tomorrow for a meeting. You can't fly there because the teleportation industry has driven all the airlines out of business. The company will pay your expenses but the "painless" option is out of your own pocket.
You know perfectly well that when you step into the booth that with 100% certainty you will be slowly crushed to death while your copy goes to the meeting. On the return trip the copy is crushed to death and a second copy returns to your job, unaware of any suffering by the originals and perfectly willing to repeat the process.
You really don't want the third option of not destroying the original, because then your other copy is withdrawing money from your bank with a duplicate of your ATM card, driving your car, and sleeping in your bedroom with your spouse. Your company might hire you back since you already know your job, but as jobs become increasingly specialized, there just might not be another opening. You would be a lot better off if your other copy were dead.
-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
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