paper-machine comments on How much is karma worth, after all? - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 27 August 2011 09:23PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 28 August 2011 03:35:22AM 7 points [-]

How much is karma worth, after all?

No (fungible) US dollars?

You get karma for comments, including comments signalling altruism. If you want to get karma via saying that you have donated then it becomes a task of maximising the efficiency of your PR exposure. The same applies to other signals, costly or otherwise.

Donating to charity is a less efficient way to gain lesswrong karma than googling for rationality quotes even in terms of time taken to make a donation, neglecting the cost of a donation itself.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 August 2011 03:57:10AM 0 points [-]

No (fungible) US dollars?

Hmmm, I suppose all I would need is a botnet and a bitcoin address to change this. That's somewhat beside the point, though.

The economic language here ("exchange rate", "paying", etc.) is not meant in a serious sense: obviously the donors were not making a donation for the sake of gathering karma. But yet, they did signal, and they did (in a non-serious sense) purchase that signal.

Donating to charity is a less efficient way to gain lesswrong karma than googling for rationality quotes even in terms of time taken to make a donation, neglecting the cost of a donation itself.

Of course it is. As I wrote,

Naturally, there's little point to this analysis. If anyone is trying to maximize net karma by donating to SIAI, something is probably wrong with their priorities.

Comment author: wedrifid 28 August 2011 03:58:11AM *  1 point [-]

Of course it is. As I wrote,

No implication that you didn't get it intended. Just emphasizing the scope of the disconnect if even time-it-takes-to-donate is sufficient. :)