Dorikka comments on Rationalists don't care about the future - Less Wrong

3 Post author: PhilGoetz 15 May 2011 07:48AM

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Tags: future utility

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Comment author: Dorikka 16 May 2011 03:33:50AM 1 point [-]

Rewrite 2^(100t) as (2^100)^t = ln(2^100)e^t.

Plugging in for t=2 is giving me 2^(100t)=1.6*10^60 and ln(2^100)e^t = 512.17

Is this an error or did I read it wrong?

There are strong reasons for believing that time-discounting is exponential.

For all utility functions a human may have? What are these reasons?

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 16 May 2011 07:16:48AM 2 points [-]

Plugging in for t=2 is giving me 2^(100t)=1.6*10^60 and ln(2^100)e^t = 512.17

Is this an error or did I read it wrong?

As I described below, his math is wrong.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 18 May 2011 04:57:02PM * 0 points [-]

Yep. Sorry. Fixing it now. The impact on the results is that your time horizon depends on your discount rate.