Wow! Surprised to see a post (hell, even i'm not currently posting myself). Mucho appreciated though. I'll post my own thoughts and a new problem soon (we'll problem run them in conjunction i reckon, at least for a period).
Do you want a life of unfailing happiness? How can you have the foresight to be able to predict that now.
I think this is a great point; it touches on a deeper concept as well. Some people say it's wrong to take (addictive) drugs because you're effectively ending your free will or limiting it in the future. You are using your current free will to destroy your free will (or limit it). Many people find that idea wrong or offensive. In Buddhism, there is this idea you are *literally* a different person from every moment to the next, in a way, future you, future VivaTequila, is actually a totally different dude. You are making a decision for someone different.
Take being a five year old, if five year old you made a decision constraining your life now, it probably wouldn't be the best decision.
A few logistical questions with the machine arise. For example - if you are inside the machine, so long as there is truly no way that you can identify that your reality is unreal, and in addition you will 100% receive constant happiness (e.g. you won't get sick of your rock and roll cocaine and stripper lifestyle), then why the heck not take that opportunity? If nothing could go wrong, you would live a pretty fucking good life.
As i elaborated earlier in the thread, turns out i interpreted it wrong, its more about politics and society than individual happiness. If happiness or our own selfish desires are the only things that drive us (in society, our lives and our morals), why isn't every single man, woman and child hooked up in an experience machine?
I'll elaborate further in my own post later on but there’s the idea here there is something bigger than ourselves, there is something bigger than our own happiness. For me, i think one of the guiding motivations of our lives should be to live in service to each other, obviously, my views break the idea of the experience machine then. If part of the reason we exist is to serve each other, hooking you up to the experience machine clearly isn't a viable option.
There are also different ethical views at play here too. One is consequentialism, how good an act is, and that is judged by the outcome. Stabbing you is bad because it hurts you (consequence). Poisoning wells is bad because it damages society. There are other views like deontological ethics, basically, it focuses on your duty to do things (and the rule that certain things are just plain wrong – killing might be sometimes allowed if you’re a consequentialist, say because it has a good outcome (saving lives), under deontology, I think it would never be allowed). Put simply - "Deontological (duty-based) ethics are concerned with what people do, not with the consequences of their actions".
Under a utilitarian/consequentialist idea, this is probably a bad idea. Even under a deontological kind of view (probably stronger so) we have a duty to serve society, it doesn’t matter if it’ll make us (or even everyone) happy by jumping in the machine, that’s focusing on the consequence, consequences don’t matter, we have a duty.