[wilg]

I suppose that is a fair characterization. I would say that I still think it's tautological. Obviously it's a synthetic situation that involves infinity, so real-world applications are difficult to evaluate.

But I just don't get why people see it as an ethical dilemma – the conclusion is a perfectly sensible outcome of the setup. The conclusion is just a restatement of the premise – a maximization of population over a maximization of happiness. Thats why it seems tautological to me, the math of it is perfunctory and reveals nothing. If you cared about maximizing happiness more than population you would have to modify the setup. The trade-off is built into the premise.