If you truly want to become stronger, note that several people whose intellects you respect have said that you’re not processing their objections correctly. You really should consider the possibility that your mind is subconsciously shrinking away from a particular line of thought, which is notoriously difficult to see as it’s happening, especially when perceived social status is at stake.
From my perspective, it looks like you’re either rejecting consequentialism (which is a respectable philosophical position in most circles, but you don’t admit outright this is what you’re doing), or else you’re importing an additional consequence for each of the 3^^^3 people, like living in a dystopia, which dodges the numerical issue by being worse for each of those 3^^^3 people than getting a dust speck would be. Thus you’re dodging at least one real purpose of the thought experiment, how to balance massive consequences for a few against mild consequences for many, and you should at least construct for yourself a variant where that dilemma is really explored. We all agree that torture is bad (all things being equal), so if you change the consequences in this way you’re reducing it to a trivial question.
If you truly want to become stronger, note that several people whose intellects you respect have said that you’re not processing their objections correctly. You really should consider the possibility that your mind is subconsciously shrinking away from a particular line of thought, which is notoriously difficult to see as it’s happening, especially when perceived social status is at stake.
From my perspective, it looks like you’re either rejecting consequentialism (which is a respectable philosophical position in most circles, but you don’t admit outright this is what you’re doing), or else you’re importing an additional consequence for each of the 3^^^3 people, like living in a dystopia, which dodges the numerical issue by being worse for each of those 3^^^3 people than getting a dust speck would be. Thus you’re dodging at least one real purpose of the thought experiment, how to balance massive consequences for a few against mild consequences for many, and you should at least construct for yourself a variant where that dilemma is really explored. We all agree that torture is bad (all things being equal), so if you change the consequences in this way you’re reducing it to a trivial question.