RobinZ comments on Late Great Filter Is Not Bad News - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Wei_Dai 04 April 2010 04:17AM

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Comment author: RobinZ 05 April 2010 12:28:04AM 0 points [-]

It's good news because you just gained a big pile of utility last night.

Yes, learning that you're not very smart when drunk is bad news, but the money more than makes up for.

Comment author: wnoise 05 April 2010 02:39:03AM 1 point [-]

Wei_Dai is saying that all the other copies of you that didn't win lost more than enough utility to make up for it. This is far from a universally accepted utility measure, of course.

Comment author: RobinZ 05 April 2010 11:33:08AM 0 points [-]

So Wei_Dai's saying the money doesn't more than make up for? That's clever, but I'm not sure it actually works.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 05 April 2010 11:42:06PM *  0 points [-]

Had the money more than made up for it, it would have been rational from a normal expected-utility perspective to play the lottery. My scenario was assuming that, with sufficient computational power, you would know that playing the lottery wasn't rational.

Comment author: RobinZ 06 April 2010 12:52:16AM 1 point [-]

We're not disagreeing about the value of the lottery - it was, by stipulation, a losing bet - we are disagreeing about the proper attitude towards the news of having won the lottery.

I don't think I understand the difference in opinion well enough to discover the origin of it.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 06 April 2010 01:36:25AM *  0 points [-]

I must have misunderstood you, then. I think that we agree about having a positive attitude toward having won.