Chris_Hallquist comments on Circular Altruism - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 January 2008 06:00PM

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Comment author: Chris_Hallquist 22 January 2008 11:33:06PM 4 points [-]

I'm seconding the worries of people like the anonymous of the first comment and Wendy. I look at the first, and I think "with no marginal utility, it's an expected value of 400 vs an expected value of 450." I look at the second and think "with no marginal utility, it's an expected value of -400 vs. an expected value of -50." Marginal utility considerations--plausible if these are the last 500 people on Earth--sway the first case much more easily than they do the second case.