timtyler comments on The Apocalypse Bet - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 August 2007 05:23PM

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Comment author: timtyler 04 November 2011 04:06:12PM *  4 points [-]

I think this procedure would be more likely to recover the chances of a personal disaster - rather than a global one.

I would borrow from my distant future self - offering to repay with interest later - but not because of a belief that the end of the world is imminent - but because of the chances that my future self would never have to repay the debt through personal catastrophes involving things like aging and dying. Since aging and dying are commonplace - while the end of the world is highly speculative - it seems likely that the former effects will dominate the signal - making it very difficult to say anything useful about the probability of the end of the world at particular points in time.