gjm comments on A summary of Savage's foundations for probability and utility. - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Sniffnoy 22 May 2011 07:56PM

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Comment author: gjm 24 May 2011 12:46:42AM 2 points [-]

How so? (It looks to me as though the ability to dutch-book someone dutch-book-able doesn't depend at all on one's value system. In particular, the individual transactions that go to make up the d.b. don't need to be of positive utility on their own, because the dutch-book-er knows that the dutch-book-ee is going to be willing to continue through to the end of the process. I think. What am I missing?)

Comment author: Will_Sawin 24 May 2011 02:11:25AM 3 points [-]

Hmm. That's not quite the right description of the illogic but something very odd is going on:

Suppose I find A and B incomparable and B and C incomparable but A is preferable to C.

Joe is willing to trade C=>B and B=>A.

I trade C into B knowing that I will eventually get A.

Then, I refuse to trade B to A!

But if Joe had not been willing to trade B=>A, I would not have traded C=>B!