Any harm can in principle be outweighed by a small enough benefit delivered to a large enough number of people.

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Our reading — they may agree, disagree or merely touch the same thing. Closest first: a shared subject counts for most, then how near the wording is.

• The causes of an outcome cannot be divided into slices that add up to 100 per cent, so a large effect from one cause does not leave a small remainder for the others. SDSaloni Dattani24 Apr 2025similar wording
• The moral theory underneath longtermism treats people as containers of value rather than as the point of it, which is why creating more of them counts as making the universe better. ÉTÉmile P. Torres19 Oct 2021similar wording
• If everyone does only a little to help solve a big problem, the collective result will still be only a little. DMDavid MacKay3 Nov 2008similar wording
• Digital worlds should carry fewer restrictions than the physical one, because acts that would do damage in reality do none there. MZMark Zuckerberg28 Sept 2023similar wording
• Letting one calculation take over a giving decision is disturbing, and there is still a strong case for it if you want your ethics to be principled and about other people. HKHolden Karnofsky15 Feb 2022similar wording

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