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Salemicus comments on Open thread, Mar. 2 - Mar. 8, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: MrMind 02 March 2015 08:19AM

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Comment author: emr 02 March 2015 08:43:45PM 9 points [-]

Woody Allen on time discounting and path-dependent preferences:

In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!

The rationality gloss is that a naive model of discounting future events implies a preference for ordering experiences by decreasing utility. But often this ordering is quite unappealing!

A related example (attributed to Gregory Bateson):

If the hangover preceded the binge, drunkenness would be considered a virtue and not a vice.

Comment author: Salemicus 03 March 2015 10:30:36AM *  2 points [-]

As Jiro and Toggle point out, this isn't time reversal, this is Benjamin Button disease. I think the original short story, much more than the film, portrays this correctly as a tragi-comedy. For example, he's a Brigadier-General, but he gets laughed out of the army because he looks like a 16-year-old.

I wonder about people who think that life would be better lived backwards, or that effect should precede cause. Isn't this the universe telling you "Change your ways" in neon capital letters?

Comment author: RowanE 03 March 2015 02:59:30PM 0 points [-]

Well, the central thing would seem to be changing aging, which isn't induced by any human actions (although you might say people who live healthier get to age more slowly) - if there's any message from the universe in aging, that message is simply "fuck you for being here".

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