- #1
GladScientist
- 44
- 0
Which of the following is the better world?
1) The world is similar to how it is now, but everyone lives a decent life. Every form of sickness and disease has a simple cure which is available to everyone. There's no poverty or starvation, and everyone gets to have a decent job and relationship. There are still personal struggles and temporary forms of suffering, but rarely if ever at all is someone so miserable that they consider suicide. Basically, scenario #1 is the human race, 10,000 years in the future, assuming we accomplish all of our goals but decide not to change the world too much. If you consider your real life overall quite enjoyable, it won't change much in World 1. If you're starving to death, have a life-threatening disease, etc, then your massive problems would be solved.
2) Your brain is in a jar along with that of the rest of the human species. They will be kept alive for something like eternity. Everyone is unable to have any kind of real-life experience. However, every positive feeling and emotion possible will be inserted into your brain indefinitely. The feeling of eating your favorite food, the feeling of having sex, the satisfaction of a job well done, the joy of seeing a smile on your child's face, the excitement of winning the lottery, love, etc. Anything you can think of that you could consider to be enjoyable is dumped into your brain in quantities not possible in real life. Your brain is rewired so that you don't need to have a bad experience every now and then in order to enjoy the good ones, and you don't build tolerance to these feelings. Their potency remains consistent forever. Every second of your existence feels exactly like the first one; the hedonistic treadmill has been disabled.
I'm almost positive (with no evidence or education on the subject) that #2 is objectively correct but most people will argue that it's #1.
1) The world is similar to how it is now, but everyone lives a decent life. Every form of sickness and disease has a simple cure which is available to everyone. There's no poverty or starvation, and everyone gets to have a decent job and relationship. There are still personal struggles and temporary forms of suffering, but rarely if ever at all is someone so miserable that they consider suicide. Basically, scenario #1 is the human race, 10,000 years in the future, assuming we accomplish all of our goals but decide not to change the world too much. If you consider your real life overall quite enjoyable, it won't change much in World 1. If you're starving to death, have a life-threatening disease, etc, then your massive problems would be solved.
2) Your brain is in a jar along with that of the rest of the human species. They will be kept alive for something like eternity. Everyone is unable to have any kind of real-life experience. However, every positive feeling and emotion possible will be inserted into your brain indefinitely. The feeling of eating your favorite food, the feeling of having sex, the satisfaction of a job well done, the joy of seeing a smile on your child's face, the excitement of winning the lottery, love, etc. Anything you can think of that you could consider to be enjoyable is dumped into your brain in quantities not possible in real life. Your brain is rewired so that you don't need to have a bad experience every now and then in order to enjoy the good ones, and you don't build tolerance to these feelings. Their potency remains consistent forever. Every second of your existence feels exactly like the first one; the hedonistic treadmill has been disabled.
I'm almost positive (with no evidence or education on the subject) that #2 is objectively correct but most people will argue that it's #1.