MichaelVassar comments on Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately - Less Wrong

75 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 April 2009 09:51AM

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Comment author: ciphergoth 01 April 2009 11:03:33AM *  10 points [-]

"Utilons" isn't quite the right word: utilons are all I purchase. My utility function is a sum of components: I can decompose it into a local part to do with my happiness and the happiness of those close to me (and thus status, warm fuzzies and the like) and a global part to do with things like the lives of strangers and the future of humanity. I try to strongly mark the boundary between those two, so I don't for example value the lives of people in the same country as me more than those in different countries.

You're saying I can more optimally spend resources on efforts that clearly serve one or the other than on efforts that try to do both and do neither well, and I agree, I'd just phrase it differently: purchase big-picture utility and small-picture utility separately.

Comment author: MichaelVassar 01 April 2009 07:05:48PM 1 point [-]

Sum of components, product, or more complex functions.

Comment author: ciphergoth 01 April 2009 07:10:52PM 0 points [-]

Just a sum, I think; my understanding of utility is that it's part of the definition that it makes sense to sum it.