A thought experiment

[brin_bellway]

Inspired by a choice game I saw once and perhaps somewhat by torture vs dust specks.

[fairly strong cw: death, aging; FWIW, I would probably advise a version of me who had not already thought of this not to read it]







Say you were granted the power to, once per day, steal one day of lifeforce from a human with which you are in skin-to-skin contact. On each day that you use the power, you do not age, and the target you stole from ages two days.

(You *cannot* store up charges: if you *don't* use your power on a given day, that opportunity is lost.)

Would you use it? To the extent that you consider this a distinct question, *should* you use it?

Follow-up questions in a comment, to give you a chance to think it over first.

Comments

[brin_bellway]

If you'd use it but with rules for which targets are suitable (possible examples: pre-sapient infants, people who are dying of something other than old age†, people you've never stolen from before), would you resort to a non-suitable target if you didn't have access to any suitable ones that day? How high a priority would you assign, when making lifestyle choices, to ensuring steady access to suitable targets?

(As for people with injuries or illnesses from which they will recover: I feel like ceasing to age should not prevent you from healing from such things (and that people dying of their injuries should not die faster if stolen from), so to be symmetrical let's say that accelerating someone's aging does not cause them to heal faster.)

If you wouldn't use it, how tempting would you find it?

Bonus question: what do you *predict* my answer will be? (I'll give my actual answer later.)

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†In this thought experiment, lifeforce is fungible: stealing from an injured or sick human will not, in itself, damage you. (But remember that it does require physical contact, so exercise appropriate levels of caution regarding stealing from contagious targets.)

[thedarlingone]

This may say more about my current level of touch deprivation than about the thought experiment itself, but my first thought is "where are you getting access to any targets?" Presuming a handshake or high-five is sufficient, I'd have... three days this year where I could have used this power, all high-fiving various supervisors at work. If I can do it through clothing (but it has to be an intentional touch, not just an accidental bump), that adds two more people and a few more days from shoulder-pats and hugs. So it's not like I could slow my own aging or accelerate anyone else's to any appreciable amount, quite apart from my actual attitude toward the concept (which as you can guess is pretty much "meh, why would I bother?" I never expected to make it past thirty. Which is apparently a PTSD thing, but still. If I live long enough to die of old age I'll be very startled.)

[skarosdrones]

I wouldn't. I spend enough time worrying about being evil as it is without doing something like that

[sigmaleph]

Only from consenting targets (in exchange for something, or if they are not expecting to die of old age, or something). That might add up to 'nobody'; I don't have a lot of money or special access to sick/suicidal people.

I would find it tempting. I don't know how well my ethics would hold up against that kind of temptation, but the above is what I consider necessary for ethics. Given enough temptation I might go for nonconsensual acquisition from targets *I* expect to die of something other than old age, but again I have no special access to such people and don't trust I can engineer it.

[brin_bellway]

Utilitarianism and avoidance of zero-sum transactions are useful heuristics, in that a world where people abide by them tends to be a better place to live than one where people screw each other over.

But helping to build the kind of world you want to live in doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you don't get to *live* in it. Useful heuristics! Worth a certain amount of sacrifice to uphold! *Not* worth dying for.

So yes, I'd use it. I'd try to reduce the harm where I could, look into hospice volunteering and the like (though I would *not* choose a career based on this: it seems like that would lead to things like "nurse" or maybe "daycare worker (at a high-turnover place)", neither of which I think I could stand), but on days where I can't make that work, non-preferred targets will have to do.

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As for how I'd feel about being on the *receiving* end of the power, it's a lot like how I'd feel about being possessed: I'd really rather they didn't, but I *get* it, you know?