Tyrrell_McAllister comments on Zeckhauser's roulette - Less Wrong

11 Post author: cousin_it 19 January 2012 07:22PM

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Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 20 January 2012 10:48:08PM 0 points [-]

I also reject the claim that C and B are equivalent (unless the utility of survival is 0, +infinity, or -infinity).

What do you make of my argument here?

Comment author: Quinn 21 January 2012 01:10:18AM 0 points [-]

After further reflection, I want to say that the problem is wrong (and several other commenters have said something similar): the premise that your money buys you no expected utility post mortem is generally incompatible with your survival having finite positive utility.

Your calculation is of course correct insofar as it stays within the scope of the problem. But note that it goes through exactly the same for my cases F and G. There you'll end up paying iff X ≤ L, and thus you'll pay the same amount to remove just 1 bullet from a full 100-shooter as to remove all 100 of them.