In his exposition of the felicific calculus, Bentham proposed a classification of 12 pains and 14 pleasures, by which we might test the “happiness factor” of any action.

The Big Man rants about crumb cake and a local crumb cake that owns a small grocery store.

Most Christian atheists believe that God never existed, but there are a few who believe in the death of God literally.

Some years ago I was trying to decide whether or not to move to Harvard from Stanford. I had bored my friends silly with endless discussion. Finally, one of them said, “You’re one of our leading decision theorists. Maybe you should make a list of the costs and benefits and try to roughly calculate your expected utility.” Without thinking, I blurted out, “Come on, Sandy, this is serious.”

(from this essay)

In every area of academic and more practical study, we can find simple examples that on introspection grow into unspeakable “creatures.”

Nevertheless, neither Kellogg nor any of the others who supported him on this question ever suggested how many times a man might have a sexual climax before he was in danger of becoming a woman.

Consider the predicament of a centipede who starts thinking about which leg to move and winds up going nowhere.

All of which means that you put off the moment when you have to make your six year old child bankrupt.

Let’s suppose that human H is Tom Carmody from New York, and evil entity E is Egbert, an UFAI which will torture puppies unless Tom buys the complete works of Robert Sheckley.