Eugine_Nier comments on Terminal Bias - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (125)
I know your position is dominant around here, but I intended to tackle it anyway. If you care about doing good, once you've handled your personal expenses, additional marginal dollars have fixed marginal utility (until you're dealing with enough money to seriously impact the global market for marginal utility).
Money utility is linear between the amounts where you're worrying about personal expenses, and the amounts where you're impacting the global market for marginal utility. That's most of the range.
The flaw in this theory is that it assumes the extra money actually gets donated.
humph. if we are not assuming the money gets used, I'm not sure how we can apply any particular utility to it at all.
We can assume the money gets used on oneself, which is much more likely to happen in the stated scenario.