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JoshuaFox comments on Lotteries & MWI - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: DataPacRat 18 November 2013 10:46PM

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Comment author: JoshuaFox 19 November 2013 07:33:24AM 4 points [-]

Diminishing marginal returns.

The utility of your gaining a $1,000,000 is not a thousand times the disutility of your losing $1000.

Comment author: [deleted] 19 November 2013 05:59:58PM 2 points [-]

There are some special cases. If someone thinks his life is worthless if he doesn't have something that could be bought or done with a $1,000,000, then the gamble could be justified. The thing that he buys pumps up the utility so much that it's more than thousands times the utility of $1000. But this is probably a really rare case.

Comment author: bogdanb 25 November 2013 07:17:33AM 2 points [-]

Medical issues that make life miserable but can be fixed with ~1M$ would be a (bit more concrete) example. Relatively rare, as you said.

Comment author: Dorikka 19 November 2013 09:07:31PM *  -1 points [-]

If losing $1000 does not impact your quality of life, your statement appears to be false. Am I missing something?

ETA: It is obvious that the returns are diminishing under certain assumptions, but not that they diminish significantly.