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Lumifer comments on We really need a "cryonics sales pitch" article. - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: CronoDAS 03 August 2015 10:42PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 07 August 2015 04:39:33PM 0 points [-]

Risk aversion arises when you would get a high marginal utility of wealth in future states in which you are relatively poor.

Risk aversion can be demonstrated even in trivial cases where you offer people a certain payout of $10 or a 50% chance of getting $20. I don't think it's about high marginal utility of wealth in certain future states.

Cryonics is not at all like insurance: insurance is about paying to protect yourself from a small chance that a bad thing will happen. Cryonics is about paying to get a small chance that a good thing will happen. It's much more akin to a lottery (as Vaniver already pointed out).

Comment author: V_V 07 August 2015 08:55:56PM *  0 points [-]

Risk aversion generally occur when your subjective utility with respect to some quantity X is monotonically but sublinearly increasing.

In most economic analysis X is generally considered to be money, but it can be really anything else, including years spent in utopia.

Comment author: James_Miller 07 August 2015 05:00:42PM 0 points [-]

Explaining my position would be more appropriate for a full post rather than a response to a response to a response, so for now I will tap out on this issue.