This seems true, but obvious. I'm not sure that I buy that fiction promotes this idea: IMO, fiction usually glosses over how the characters got their powers because it's boring. Some real-life examples of power for cheap would be very useful. Here are some suggestions:

• Stick your money in index funds. This is way easier and more effective than trying to beat the market.
• Ignore the news. It will waste your time and make you sad.
• Go into a high-paying major / career
• Ask for things/information/advice. Asking is cheap, and sometimes it works.

Anyone have other real-world suggestions?

Say the player thought that they were likely win the lottery, that it was a good purchase. This may seem insane to someone familiar with probability and the lottery system, but not everyone is familiar with these things.

I would say this person made a good decision with bad information.

Perhaps we should attempt to stop placing so much emphasis on individualism and just try to do the best we can while not judging others nor other decisions much.

There are lots of times when it's important to judge people e.g. for hiring or performance reviews.

J. S. Mill had a similar idea:

...one might also mention his acceptance of the principle of multiple votes, in which educated and more responsible persons would be made more influential by giving them more votes than the uneducated.

-- Wilson, Fred, "John Stuart Mill", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Doesn't "contrarian" just mean "disagrees with the majority"? Any further logic-chopping seems pointless and defensive.

The fact that 98% of people are theists is evidence against atheism. I'm perfectly happy to admit this. I think there is other, stronger evidence for atheism, but the contrarian heuristic definitely argues for belief in God.

Similarly, believing that cryonics is a good investment is obviously contrarian. AGI is harder to say; most people probably haven't thought about it.

It seems like the question you're really trying to answer is "what is a good prior belief for things I am not an expert on?"

(I'm sorry about arguing over terminology, which is usually stupid, but this case seems egregious to me).

Most of your post is not arguments against curing death.

People being risk-averse has nothing to do with anti-aging research and everything to do with individuals not wanting to die...which has always been true (and becomes more true as life expectancy rises and the "average life" becomes more valuable). The same is true for "we should risk more lives for science".

I agree that people adapt OK to death, but I think you're poking a strawman; the reason death is bad is because it kills you, not because it makes your friends sad.

I think "death increases diversity" is a good argument. On the other hand, most people who present that argument are thrilled that life expectancy has increased to ~70 from ~30 in ancient history. Why stop at 70?

I think that this post conflates two issues, and is an example of a flaw of reasoning that goes like this:

Alice: It would be good if we could change <state of affairs X>.
Bob: Ah, but if we changed X, then problems A, B, and C would ensue! Therefore, it would not be good if we could change X.

Bob is confusing the desirability of the change with the prudence of the change. Alice isn't necessarily saying that we should make the change she's proposing. She's saying it would be good if we could do so. But Bob immediately jumps to examining what problems would ensue if we changed X, decides that changing X would be imprudent, and concludes from this that it would also be undesirable.

But that last step is entirely groundless. Something could be a bad idea in practice due to implementation difficulties, but very desirable. These are orthogonal considerations. (Another way to think about it is: the consequences of making a change, vs. the consequences of the means used to implement said change.)

I think that Bob's mistake is rooted in the fact that he is treating Alice's proposal as, essentially, a wish made to a genie. "Oh great genie," says Alice, "please make it so that death is no more!" Bob, horrified, stops Alice before she can finish speaking, and shouts "No! Think of all the ways the words of your wish can be twisted! Think of the unintended consequences! You haven't considered the implications! No, Alice, you must not make such grand wishes of a genie, for they will inevitably go awry."

The view here on Lesswrong, on the other hand, treats Alice's proposal as an engineering challenge. The conversation in that style goes like this:

Alice: It would be good if we coud change <state of affairs X>.
Chris: Hm, I concur that this would be good if we could do it. However, consider problem A, which would arise as a result.
Alice: I think that solution J would handle that acceptably.
Chris: That seems reasonable. But, there is also problem B to deal with.
Alice: It may seem like that at first, but actually that won't be a problem because <explanation>.
Chris: Ah, I see. It occurs to me that C will also be problematic.
Alice: Hmm, you're right. That will be a challenge; I will have to give that some serious thought.
Chris: Please do! It would be very nice if you could solve it, because then we could make change X, which we both agree would be great.

Once you properly distinguish the concepts of desirability and prudence, you can treat problems with your proposal as obstacles to overcome, not reasons not to do it. So a real "defense of deathism" would have to argue that death is desirable; that immortality is not something we would or should want, even if we solved all the auxiliary problems. Otherwise, it fails to engage with the core of the anti-death position.

How are your savings for retirement?

If you have no retirement savings, you can set some up at an easy to use online brokerage: Your early twenties is a great time to start, managing your retirement account doesn't really have to take a large amount of time, and 50 dollars a day should cover initial expenditures.

Also, at 29, I personally enjoy fiddling around with my retirement account... although it took me a while to figure out the right settings for myself and I did have some initial panics when it was smaller, I wasn't as familiar with the pros and cons of various investment types, and one of my stocks had gone down quite a bit. Now that it is bigger and much more well diversified, it's more fun.

When we analyze these data more formally in regressions we find no evidence of a significant break in either the happiness-income relationship, nor in the life satisfaction-income relationship, even at annual incomes up to half a million dollars.

The studies on income satisficing (past 75k, more money doesn't correlate with more happiness) certainly suggest that this is true.

And other studies suggest that it isn't.

My favored option is buying durable goods, especially labor-saving devices. $50/day surplus is enough to make one significant purchase (say, a laundry machine or a good-quality item of furniture) each month, for a noticeable long-term improvement in comfort. I don't like spending money in ways that will have to be repeated regularly.

That's my own plan for the next year, anyway; until recently, I spent my surplus paying down debts. (which, incidentally, you should do first if you have any, but I assume since you're asking that you do not.)