Psy-Kosh comments on The Lifespan Dilemma - Less Wrong

39 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 September 2009 06:45PM

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Comment author: Psy-Kosh 10 September 2009 08:35:10PM 4 points [-]

bwahaha. Though my initial thought is "take the deal. This seems actually easier than choosing TORTURE. If you can actually offer up those possibilities at those probabilities, well... yeah."

Unless there's some fun theoretic stuff that suggests that when one starts getting to the really big numbers, fun space seriously shrinks to the point that, even if it's not bounded, grows way way way way way slower than logarithmic... And even then, just offering a better deal would be enough to overcome that.

Again, I'm not certain, but my initial thought is "take the deal, and quickly, before the seller changes their mind"

But this is just an initial consideration. I don't think this problem is particularly nastier than SPECKS vs TORTURE, given that we can reliably juggle the teeny probabilities and establish that the seller really could offer what's being offered.

Comment author: wedrifid 11 September 2009 11:26:54AM 0 points [-]

I had much the same observations.