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Pat was feeling forward-thinking so Ben dashes all hopes of that with a survey of one of the simplest yet confounding thought experiments in recent philosophy: The Repugnant Conclusion. Based on the writings of late British philosopher/madlad Derek Parfit, The Repugnant Conclusion is the end result of taking Utilitarianism's commitment to maximizing happiness to its logical conclusion. If it's our goal to increase the amount of happiness in the world, it's our duty to maximize the number of lives possible who can experience a small measure of happiness, even if it means these new lives would overall live in misery. How does that make sense? It doesn't! But we can't avoid it! Oh well.