gwern comments on When Willpower Attacks - Less Wrong

17 Post author: jimrandomh 03 October 2009 03:36AM

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Comment author: gwern 19 October 2013 09:26:22PM *  3 points [-]

It won't be long before his social life becomes impoverished. Akrasia in his case would be quite adaptive.

Ah, but you forgot that this particular homo economicus has a utility function valuing only reproductive fitness. By suppressing emotions like empathy, guilt, shame, love, and ordinary creature comforts, he is able to make a fortune and pay/bribe sperm banks in countless countries to use exclusively his own sperm; by the time he dies heavily in debt (a poor decision by his creditors), his sperm has been used in tens of thousands of inseminations, almost all of which come to fruition, and he is officially the Most Reproductively Fit Man in the World. Akrasia in his case would be quite maladaptive.