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wedrifid comments on The Hidden B.I.A.S. - Less Wrong Discussion
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Really suck? No! That's fantastic news. No bad thing has happened and you also discovered something awesome happened. (Envy is irrational in this case.)
How bad do things have to get for you here, before you're allowed to envy your other self?
Let me try to express that again since intuitions differ regarding concepts like envy, jealously and spite. What is irrational is considering a positive outcome for something you identify with (your clone) that has no known negative effects on anything you care about to be a net bad thing.
If Kawoomba actually has the preferences he implies and those preferences are even remotely internally consistent he will either:
Yes. Just like in principle I'd wish everyone to be well off and swimming in resources.
However, I (due to envy, jealousy and spite) would prefer not to be the only poor guy living in such an enclave of millionaires. This is irrational because a resource-rich environment would benefit a poor-me more so than an environment in which all others are around my same socio-economic stratum.
(In a trade off, when given the choice of elevating everyone around me - excluding friends and relatives - but myself, I'd do it, but when given the choice I'd rather do so with strangers I do not encounter daily, as opposed to strangers that I do.)
People who live off of welfare in many European countries have a vastly better standard of living than many of the feudal lords in medieval times. Yet, they define their standard of living relative to their peers, and will feel much worse off than some medieval baron. Tyranny of relativity.
Also, re: wedrified "if my preferences are even remotely internally consistent", well, they are not. Are yours? (Not: do you want them to be?)
Answered here (just so you don't miss it).
Breaking my own rule of not fighting the hypothetical, it surely would. That better-off clone could well replace me in many roles, and generally take my little niche in my environment. But we should assume there are no known negative effects, in which case you'd be right, of course. So now that we've established that the is-state of me is irrational (as opposed to the ought-state), quo vadis? :)
Interesting. I added a poll to the grandparent. Also, let's keep in mind that we're not talking from the position of a perfectly rational agent, or version of yourself, but from your/my position. As such, while feelings of envy may be irrational, that does not mean that our current selves would not experience them.