I don't know on what basis you say that the expected utility loss is "effectively zero". There's a utility gain to the person who takes an illegal copy of the book instead of buying it, because they have more money that way. There's a utility loss (which I'd have thought is obviously approximately equal in general) to the people who'd have profited directly from the sale of the book: author, publisher, distributor. And then there are second-order effects, less localized and therefore harder to see and harder to assess, from (e.g.) the slightly reduced incentives for others to write, publish and sell books, the increased social acceptability of getting books in this way, etc.
It looks to me as if what we have here is: first-order effects that cancel out exactly when expressed in terms of money, and therefore probably cancel out approximately when expressed in terms of utility, and second-order effects that are hard to get a handle on but look clearly negative to me.
Could you justify your position further on this point?
As for the second claim, note that this also needs to be true to make your "doing something wrong" assertion correct -- and ought to be obvious to justify your having made it so baldly. I'm glad you agree that it isn't.
No one was claiming or suggesting that anyone should go straight from "I'd find it interesting to read that" to buying the book, without any consideration or weighing of consequences in between. So if my last sentence is equivalent to your main point, it seems to me that you were attacking a straw man.
first-order effects that cancel out exactly when expressed in terms of money, and therefore probably cancel out approximately when expressed in terms of utility
Surely the externalities of cutting down trees to make paper/burning fuel to power the printer/etc. are first-order effects which aren't cancelled out by anything obvious. Or am I missing something?
See also: Twelve Virtues of Rationality, The Meditation on Curiosity, Use Curiosity
What would it look like if someone was truly curious — if they actually wanted true beliefs? Not someone who wanted to feel like they sought the truth, or to feel their beliefs were justified. Not someone who wanted to signal a desire for true beliefs. No: someone who really wanted true beliefs. What would that look like?
A truly curious person would seek to understand the world as broadly and deeply as possible. They would study the humanities but especially math and the sciences. They would study logic, probability theory, argument, scientific method, and other core tools of truth-seeking. They would inquire into epistemology, the study of knowing. They would study artificial intelligence to learn the algorithms, the math, the laws of how an ideal agent would acquire true beliefs. They would study modern psychology and neuroscience to learn how their brain acquires beliefs, and how those processes depart from ideal truth-seeking processes. And they would study how to minimize their thinking errors.
They would practice truth-seeking skills as a musician practices playing her instrument. They would practice "debiasing" techniques for reducing common thinking errors. They would seek out contexts known to make truth-seeking more successful. They would ask others to help them on their journey. They would ask to be held accountable.
They would cultivate that burning itch to know. They would admit their ignorance but seek to destroy it.
They would be precise, not vague. They would be clear, not obscurantist.
They would not flinch away from experiences that might destroy their beliefs. They would train their emotions to fit the facts.
They would update their beliefs quickly. They would resist the human impulse to rationalize.
But even all this could merely be a signaling game to increase their status in a group that rewards the appearance of curiosity. Thus, the final test for genuine curiosity is behavioral change. You would find a genuinely curious person studying and learning. You would find them practicing the skills of truth-seeking. You wouldn't merely find them saying, "Okay, I'm updating my belief about that" — you would also find them making decisions consistent with their new belief and inconsistent with their former belief.
Every week I talk to people who say they are trying to figure out the truth about something. When I ask them a few questions about it, I often learn that they know almost nothing of logic, probability theory, argument, scientific method, epistemology, artificial intelligence, human cognitive science, or debiasing techniques. They do not regularly practice the skills of truth-seeking. They don't seem to say "oops" very often, and they change their behavior even less often. I conclude that they probably want to feel they are truth-seeking, or they want to signal a desire for truth-seeking, or they might even self-deceivingly "believe" that they place a high value on knowing the truth. But their actions show that they aren't trying very hard to have true beliefs.
Dare I say it? Few people look like they really want true beliefs.