Okeymaker, I think the argument is this:
Torturing one person for 50 years is better than torturing 10 persons for 40 years.
Torturing 10 persons for 40 years is better than torturing 1000 persons for 10 year.
Torturing 1000 persons for 10 years is better than torturing 1000000 persons for 1 year.
Torturing 10^6 persons for 1 year is better than torturing 10^9 persons for 1 month.
Torturing 10^9 persons for 1 month is better than torturing 10^12 persons for 1 week.
Torturing 10^12 persons for 1 week is better than torturing 10^15 persons for 1 day.
Torturing 10^15 persons for 1 day is better than torturing 10^18 persons for 1 hour.
Torturing 10^18 persons for 1 hour is better than torturing 10^21 persons for 1 minute.
Torturing 10^21 persons for 1 minute is better than torturing 10^30 persons for 1 second.
Torturing 10^30 persons for 1 second is better than torturing 10^100 persons for 1 millisecond.
Torturing for 1 millisecond is exactly what a dust speck does.
And if you disagree with the numbers, you can add a few millions. There is still plenty of space between 10^100 and 3^^^3.
Okay, so let’s zoom in here. What is preferable?
Torturing 1 person for 60 seconds
Torturing 100 person for 59 seconds
Torturing 10000 person for 58 seconds
etc.
Kind of a paradox of the heap. How many seconds of torture are still torture?
And 10^30 is really a lot of people. That’s what Eliezer meant with “scope insensitivity”. And all of them would be really grateful if you spared them their second of pain. Could be worth a minute of pain?