CCC comments on Wanting to Want - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Alicorn 16 May 2009 03:08AM

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

Comments (185)

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

Comment author: CCC 29 October 2012 08:38:40PM *  1 point [-]

...you know, it's only after I read this comment that I realised that you're suggesting that the utility-decreasing aspects may not use the same function as the utility-decreasing aspects. That is, what I was doing was mathematically equivalent to first linearly combining the separate aspects, and only then feeding that single number to a monotonically increasing nonlinear function.

Now I feel somewhat silly.

But yes, now I see that you are right. There are possible ethical models (example: bounded asymptotic increase for positive utility, unbounded linear decrease for negative utility) wherein a larger Omelas could be worse than a smaller Omelas, above some critical maximum size. In fact, there are some functions wherein an Omelas of size X could have positive utility, while an Omelas of size Y (with Y>X) could have negative utility.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 30 October 2012 04:52:35PM -1 points [-]

Yup. Sorry I wasn't clearer earlier; glad we've converged.