The Repugnant Conclusion

This video explores and tries to explain the philosophical theory of The Repugnant Conclusion. It states that one can make a convincing argument for why a huge miserable population is better than a small happy one. It was inspired by the writings of Jonathan Spelman and Derek Parfit. I hope you find it interesting.

Sources:

Intro & outro music by Undoomed & Wolvven Music:

[Stormeris]

"Imagine that you're the ruler of the world"
Oh geez, i guess we're all fucked.

[DimlerTheDark]

This feels like a false start because I don't even agree with the first step that A+ is better than A.

[RantingMonkey]

Philosophers can convince themselves of anything.

[HDInstrumental]

I think there's a flaw with this philosophy.

It assumes that all the individual constituents of the group are the same, that the societies are a monolith. As we know from history, this is precisely the kind of thinking that lead to the creation of the world's most dangerous and most murderous ideology – Communism.

We are not a monolith, we react to change, we behave differently, there's an unequal distribution of success and resources in the world, we make different choices.

In order for this idea to work, the populations within these societies would have to be monolithic, but that's impossible.

[MiraSmit]

The argument misses one vital thing, at what point is a life no longer worth living?

[terrykimball]

I understand what undoomed is talking about the repugnant conclusion is a another word for mere addition pardox in other words it's Social Justice bullshit I found the information on Wikipedia

[FaiThWii]

This video is fucking amazing. Well done Undoomed!

[Sangtrone]

The biggest problem with this argument is the measurement of quality of life. Specifically it's the assumption that it would always be expressed as a positive number. You'd have to explain what the absolute rock bottom quality of life would be given a living population (since the assumption in this thought experiment is that population and QoL are independent). That would have to be your zero and all measurements would have to compare to that.

However if you allow that there is such a thing as a negative QoL then there would be a point where the QoL would be so bad that no population however large could be better than one with a positive QoL. The baseline (the zero) would also be much easier to define as you could put it anywhere on the spectrum.

[NathanSifu]

Man when undoomed picks the high hanging fruit, he gets a fuckin' tall ladder!

[theman]

I don't really understand....
Why are more people naturally better?

[mainstreamcommercialnihili]

Any way you slice it, a whole lot of people will suffer and die when we finally run out of the ability to sustain our current population.

On the bright side, most of them will be in Africa.

[MissyJ]

In the long run, it sounds like someone trying to justify communism. The kind of argument you'd hear from people who oppose wealth gaps in developed, happy, nations like the UK or the US. Like something someone would use to argue against certain points Margret Thatcher made.

I like these kinds of videos from you.
Thank you for this thought experiment.

[orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Well bloody hell.... about time the faceless one who can say "moron" in the most powerfullest manner showed up... i thought id have to start spirit summining thee! ~ alas here you are with more golden nuggets... ya couldn't of timed that better.

[dorksword]

The editing of this video is better than any YouTube video (and many movies, for that matter) that I have ever seen. The point is also very well articulated, as always with your videos. Bravo, sir.

[frodothehobo]

something to add on to this, theirs been a whole bunch of research on quality of life in societies. what we have found is, as soon as someone is able to pay all of their bills, fill their fridge with food has enough time left to maintain hobbies, money no longer contributes to happiness, meaning bill gates is likely no happier than someone making low 6 figures, and what we have also found is that poverty does not produce unhappiness, wealth disparity produces unhappiness. meaning if you barely make enough to survive and your neighbor drives a car worth more than you make in 10 years to work, it's very likely that you will be less happy than if you lived somewhere where you couldn't see that person, so in reality it is very likely people living in somewhat developed societies in africa, because african currency is very low compared to US currency, that they are probably about as happy as middle class workers in america. that is *not* to say i support globalism and that is *not* to say i support communism because both of those things bring evil and misery, what i am saying is that it doesn't seem very likely that in this analogy, society A would ever exist to begin with.

[xekis]

The argument was lost on me when I supposed to assume that the A+ population was better than A.

I disagree with that so the inductive logic breaks there.

[Teirusu]

You make some of the HIGHEST quality videos on this website. I freaking love your work.

[euridious]

I'm running this video on my phone and laptop at the same time, in a grey room with little furniture. Makes the video hit home WAY more

[benjaminwalker]

I currently study philosophy at A level, so I thank you for making this video!

[LordBitememan]

Holy crap, Undoomed, ads ran on your video!