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Nisan comments on LW Women: LW Online - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (590)
Is this comment a satire?
In any case, the remark about the von Neumann-Morgenstern theorem is just wrong.
Is yours?
So, what does the term in a utility function corresponding to fairness look like?
Like, if someone wanted to mock this website, that's exactly what they'd write.
You're probably thinking that a utility function can't prefer "fair" lotteries. But it can prefer fair outcomes, which is what's relevant here.
I'm not a utilitarian and the arguments like the one I made about utility are part of the reason, if that's what you're asking.
What's a "fair" outcome? Should we abandon life extension research because it would be "unfair" to those who died before it achieves results?
The von Neumann-Morgenstern theorem has nothing to do with utilitarianism, and it's not about what you "should" do. Those words don't appear in the statement of the theorem. The theorem does state that a VNM-rational agent has a preference ordering over lotteries of outcomes. In fact it can have any preferences over outcomes at all and still satisfy the hypotheses of the theorem. In particular, it can prefer fair outcomes to unfair outcomes for any definition of "fair".
If you want to argue that one shouldn't pursue fairness, you don't want to use the VNM theorem.
Agreed, unfortunately a lot of people around here seem to interpret it this way.
I would argue that fairness is a property of a process rather than an outcome, e.g., a kangaroo court doesn't become "fair" just because it happens to reach the same verdict a fair trial would have.
A simple "no" would have sufficed. Downvoted.
Downvoted Eugine for the same reason, and upvoted MugaSofer back to positive. I value honest feedback, and see no reason to downvote 'em for providing it.