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Vaniver comments on Open Thread, October 16-31, 2012 - Less Wrong
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Decision theory and selfish donating
Suppose an author I like says she'll write a new work if she gets enough donations. Under CDT, it's clear to me that it can't make sense for me to donate - my donation can't increase the probability of me reading the book enough to pay for the cost, and there are much more efficient ways for me to give altruistically. What do other decision theories have to say about this?
As far as I can tell, any decision theory that disagrees with CDT in this case is mistaken. The author (or you) need to sweeten the deal; either the benefits need to be better, or the cost needs to be lower. Typical ways to improve the benefit are to attach status or other goods to the donation- whenever I talk about the Kickstarter projects I back, I make sure to mention that, you know, I backed them.
You missed an opportunity here. ;)
Yeah, but the conversation is about collective patronage in general, not about specific projects, and it seemed like it would detract from my point to also brag with my comment.