I get lazy evaluating the gains of the counterfactual of non-masturbating which is later on in time since I process the extreme positive value of masturbating immediately before ''hand''.
Perhaps if I estimated the value of consequences on decision branches in reverse chronological order I could change this behaviour. For example, rather than imaginging what will happen if I start masturbating and thinking about the pleasure, I try to think what will be the consequences from masturbating for when I'm 80 years old, then work backwards from there. Perhaps there is a name for this approach to decision theory?
Today's post, Lotteries: A Waste of Hope was originally published on April 13, 2007. A summary (from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments of the original post).
This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Priors as Mathematical Objects, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki, or creating exercises. Go here for more details, or to discuss the Sequence Reruns.