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gjm comments on On dollars, utility, and crack cocaine - Less Wrong
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Perhaps this just indicates that I lead too sheltered a life, but I think most people don't have $<<0, and I suspect that for modest levels of debt the $ -> utility function is concave just as it is for positive $. So I'm skeptical of the claim that "poor folks" playing the lottery or using crack are generally maximizing their expected utility.
And I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think I've ever said anything like "those fools don't deserve our help if they're going to make such stupid decisions" about people playing the lottery or taking crack, and if I ever did I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be the desperately poor and/or miserable ones that I had in mind.
So would I be, if I heard someone make that claim. I'll edit the post to clarify that I don't mean that.
EDIT: Hmm. While I don't explicitly make that claim, I think it is possible that they are generally doing much better at it than we think they are.
Nobody maximizes their expected utility.