timtyler comments on John Baez on Charity - Less Wrong

5 Post author: XiXiDu 09 March 2011 01:39PM

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Comment author: timtyler 09 March 2011 06:35:43PM *  0 points [-]

This could be a nit-pick, but your risk aversion should be factored into your utility function

Not according to Against Discount Rates ...and I agree - though this may be a tangent.

It is better if risk aversion is dynamically generated.

Comment author: ata 09 March 2011 10:33:54PM *  2 points [-]

This could be a nit-pick, but your risk aversion should be factored into your utility function

Not according to Against Discount Rates ...and I agree - though this may be a tangent.

I think these are two different things. I'd agree in opposing temporal discounting, but I'm not sure there's anything (normatively) problematic about being risk-averse with money.

(Also, I believe Larks's statement "your risk aversion should be factored into your utility function" didn't mean to imply necessarily "you should be risk averse"; I just read it to mean "if you're risk-averse, you don't need to put that outside the framework of expected utility maximization, and decide not to always maximize expected utility; rather, your utility function itself can represent however much risk aversion you have".)