Ben_Jones comments on Allais Malaise - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 January 2008 12:40AM

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Comment author: Ben_Jones 21 January 2008 03:44:29PM 1 point [-]

Well, clearly, money should go alongside Quantum Theory in the 'bad example' dustbin. Money has been the root of most of these confusions.

Try replacing dollars with chits. The only rules with chits are that the more you have, the better it is, and you can never have too many. Their cumulative utility is fixed, i.e. you 'get as much utility' from your millionth as you do from the first. These posts aren't a discussion on the value of money.

'People sometimes make the irrational decision for rational reasons' also misses the point. As this post says, if you want to use your own heuristic for deciding how to bet, go for it. If you want to maximise your expected monetary gain using decision theory, well, here's how you do it.