quinsie comments on Morality is not about willpower - Less Wrong

9 Post author: PhilGoetz 08 October 2011 01:33AM

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Comment author: quinsie 09 October 2011 01:20:25AM *  0 points [-]

It all depends on why you decide to torrent/not torrent:

Are you more likely to torrent if the album is very expensive, or if it is very cheap? If you expect it to be of high quality, or of low quality? If the store you could buy the album at is far away, or very close? If you like the band that made it, or if you don't like them? Longer albums or shorter? Would you torrent less if the punishment for doing so was increased? Would you torrent more if it was harder to get caught? What if you were much richer, or much poorer?

I'm confident that if you were to analyze when you torrent vs. when you buy, you'd notice trends that, with a bit of effort, could be translated into a fairly reasonable "Will I Torrent or Buy?" function that predicts whether you'll torrent or not with much better accuracy than random.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 09 October 2011 02:38:48AM 6 points [-]

I'm confident that if you were to analyze when you torrent vs. when you buy, you'd notice trends that, with a bit of effort, could be translated into a fairly reasonable "Will I Torrent or Buy?" function that predicts whether you'll torrent or not with much better accuracy than random.

Yes, but the function might all include terms for things like how rude were Yvain's co-workers to Yvain that day, what mood was Yvain in that day, was Yvain hungry at the moment, i.e., stuff a reasonably behaved utility function shouldn't have terms for but the outcome of a willpower based struggle very well might.

Comment author: Yvain 09 October 2011 01:34:59AM 2 points [-]

I'm sure that's true, but what relevance does that have to the current discussion?