steven0461 comments on How Not to be Stupid: Adorable Maybes - Less Wrong

-2 Post author: Psy-Kosh 29 April 2009 07:15PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (54)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: steven0461 30 April 2009 12:50:42AM *  2 points [-]

I think Nick Tarleton refuted this in the other subthread -- a lottery here means a lottery over states of the world, which include your knowledge state, so if you get your knowledge of the outcome later it's not really the same thing.

It's still true that this is a reason to disprefer realistic lotteries where you learn the outcome later, but maybe this is better termed "unpredictability aversion" than "risk aversion"? After all, it can happen even when all lottery outcomes are equally desirable. (Example: you like soup and potatoes equally, but prefer either to a lottery over them because you want to know whether to get a spoon or a fork.)

Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 30 April 2009 01:06:21AM 0 points [-]

(In that link, I'm actually just restating Thom Blake's argument.)

Comment author: thomblake 30 April 2009 05:30:27PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for the link!