Vladimir_M comments on What Cost for Irrationality? - Less Wrong

59 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 01 July 2010 06:25PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 July 2010 08:18:09PM 8 points [-]

Come to think of it, some of the MWI proponents here should agree that by their criteria, there was nothing irrational about Paulos's investment at all.

Anyone with diminishing returns on the utility of money doesn't like volatility, whether probabilistic or MWI.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 01 July 2010 08:56:09PM *  1 point [-]

That's true, but given that bankruptcy laws provide an effective floor for how badly you can suffer due to losses, and getting rich can provide for superlinear utility of money for some people (especially since being a savvy investor is very high status), I would expect that some would find the shut-up-and-multiply outcome positive given their preferences. This especially in the context of MWI, in which this strategy guarantees a roughly predictable future mix of your impoverished (but not horribly suffering), reasonably well-off, and super-rich and high-status future selves.

Of course, I don't think that this is implied by MWI as such; that's why I wrote "some of the MWI proponents."