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]

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?