shminux comments on The Apocalypse Bet - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: gwern 23 September 2012 10:20:00PM * 2 points [-]

My best thought is a Pascalian thought about what the quasi-dominant option is:

if the singleton Singularity happens, then your investment is just wasted and your loss is bounded at whatever that money could have bought you pre-Singularity;
if the Hanson Singularity happens, your gains are potentially huge over the long-term (assuming property rights are respected...);
if no Singularity at all happens, then your early all-equity investments (for a young person) was a good-to-great way to save for retirement (or a post-death bequest or expense, like cryonics) and you gain a lot.

So in 2 out of the 3 outcomes, you are much better off investing heavily in equities, and in the first you are not that badly off.

Comment author: shminux 23 September 2012 10:27:53PM 0 points [-]

So one should carry on disregarding the possibility of God existing... err... Singularity happening?

Comment author: gwern 23 September 2012 10:40:41PM 0 points [-]

Dunno. What do you think of the thumbnail analysis?