From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Wed May 29 2002 - 13:46:50 MDT
Lee Corbin [mailto:lcorbin@tsoft.com] wrote:
For example, my view that the death of a child of age 12 is not as
bad as the death of the child at age 7, and that that isn't so bad as
as being aborted, and that's better than never being conceived at all,
comes directly from the more abstract consideration of the general
desirability of getting run time.
At some point in the relatively near future, a program will benefit.
What do you want to do with the computer resources under your control
when the running of certain programs becomes a moral issue? Is it
ethical to stop such an execution once it's started? What I definitely
do *not* want to happen is for people to never run programs that benefit,
simply to avoid the issue of halting them!
### You seem to imply a symmetry applying to the valuation of existence in
time - the time before you were born is as distressing to contemplate as the
time after your death. This is a rather uncommon idea, which I previously
found only once, in a story by Stanislaw Lem.
Personally, I do not mind my past nonexistence, but the evolved survival
circuitry strongly avoids future nonexistence. The arrow time at work.
So, it's perfectly fine with me to never have a child but it's bad to stop
one from running (except under a car).
Rafal
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