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PhilGoetz comments on On dollars, utility, and crack cocaine - Less Wrong
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If we don't believe that the shape of their utility curves makes the lottery have a higher expected utility for poor people than for well-off people, then we are saying that poor people don't have any further motivations than rich people to grasp at this straw.
It's possible (indeed, plausible) both that (a) poor people have these utility functions, and therefore more reason to play the lottery; and (b) it's still irrational for them to play the lottery.
Yes. I'm not thinking of rationality as a line that people either cross or don't. If you say that rationality is maximizing your expected utility, then none of us are rational.
If they have more reason to play the lottery than we at first thought, then they are more rational than we at first thought.