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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34915 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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This is a distinct problem in that they're going to colonize a new planet, not rejoining broader society as when evacuating a localized disaster. Thus, long term considerations are important. You're not just trying to maximize value of the lives currently being saved, but the long term potential of the human race stemming from these people, their reproductive potential, and their ability to survive in the wilderness. Hypothetically, if you had 2 adult men, 2 adult women, and 8 young children, you should save all the adults and 4 of the children, rather than saving 8 children, because otherwise they just starve to death and haven't really been saved. Whereas on a ship, on a non-destroyed earth, you should save the 8 children because they can be taken care of by society so are actually saved long term.

I'm not convinced that changes the calculus that much if at all.

Are we sure about that? The prompt just says "flight to another planet." It's consistent with the available information that the planet already has a self-sustaining human colony populated by carefully selected astronauts with all the expertise needed to keep it running.

This would explain why the list has no engineers, botanists or (fully-trained) doctors - it's not about giving humanity a chance, it already has one. Instead, they're trying to save some of humanity's "diversity", and our task is to decide what diversity is worth saving the most.

It's also consistent that the planet might be fully populated with a few billion people and have a fully functioning society comparable to Earth with all of its diversity intact.

It's also consistent that the planet is dominated by a sadistic alien race that will torture everyone who arrives there.

I don't think it's reasonable to infer too much beyond what the prompt says or implies immediately from the way it's formatted. And the simplest interpretation that seems consistent with it would be that the planet is habitable but empty of humans other than the 8 chosen. If they meant to just ask to save 8 human's lives and integrate them into a human society they wouldn't need to invoke planet destruction. The point of destroying the planet is that these are the only 8 humans that will be left in the universe.

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