JohnDavidBustard comments on The Allais Paradox - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 January 2008 03:05AM

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Comment author: Sniffnoy 26 August 2010 10:44:27AM 1 point [-]

I think the Allais paradox is fascinating, however, although it is very revealing about our likely motives for playing the lottery it doesn't change the potential rationality of actual playing it. I.e. that money and value don't necessarily have a linear relationship, and so optimising for EV is not rational.

Of course, that just means you maximise expected utility rather than expected money. (I was almost going to write "expected value" instead of "expected utility" as you used the word "value", but obviously that would be confusing in this context...)

Comment author: JohnDavidBustard 26 August 2010 12:55:20PM 0 points [-]

Yes, absolutely, apologies for my unfamiliarity with the terms.

The point I'm trying to make is that lottery playing optimises utility (assuming utility means what is considered valuable to the person). Saying that lottery playing is irrational is making a statement about what is valuable more that it does about what is reasonable.