In response to Seven Apocalypses
Comment author: wallowinmaya 29 September 2016 04:30:29PM *  3 points [-]

I don't understand why you exclude risks of astronomical suffering ("hell apocalypses").

Below you claim that those risks are "Pascalian" but this seems wrong.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 24 October 2015 09:39:46AM *  0 points [-]

Cool that you are doing this!

Is there also a facebook event?

Comment author: Lumifer 16 March 2015 05:57:12PM 0 points [-]

in the real world it's probably very hard to find (non-contrived) instances of pure satisficing or pure maximizing.

That's not true -- for example, in cases where the search costs for the full space are trivial, pure maximizing is very common.

In reality, people fall on a continuum from pure satisficers to pure maximizers

My objection is stronger. The behavior of optimizing for (gain - cost) does NOT lie on the continuum between satisficing and maximizing as defined in your post, primarily because they have no concept of the cost of search.

Anna could be meaningfully described as a "cookie-maximizer"

Then define "maximizing" in a way that will let you call Anna a maximizer.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 17 March 2015 10:55:09AM *  4 points [-]

That's not true -- for example, in cases where the search costs for the full space are trivial, pure maximizing is very common.

Ok, sure. I probably should have written that pure maximizing or satisficing is hard to find in important, complex and non-contrived instances. I had in mind such domains as career, ethics, romance, and so on. I think it's hard to find a pure maximizer or satisficer here.

My objection is stronger. The behavior of optimizing for (gain - cost) does NOT lie on the continuum between satisficing and maximizing as defined in your post, primarily because they have no concept of the cost of search.

Sorry, I fear that I don't completely understand your point. Do you agree that there are individual differences in people, such that some people tend to search longer for a better solution and other people are more easily satisfied with their circumstances – be it their career, their love life or the world in general?

Maybe I should have tried an operationalized definition: Maximizers are people who get high scores on this maximization scale (page 1182) and satisficers are people who get low scores.

Comment author: thakil 16 March 2015 01:57:35PM 1 point [-]

You seem to have made a convincing argument that most people are epistemic satisficers. I certainly am. But you don't seem to have made a compelling argument that such people are worse off than epistemic maximisers. I don't really see what benefits I would get from making an additional effort to truly identify my "terminal values". If I found myself dissatisfied with my current situation, then that would be one thing, but if I was I would try and improve it under my satisficer behaviour anyway. What you are proposing is that someone with 40 utility should put in some effort and presumably gaining some disutility from doing so, perhaps dropping myself to 35 utility to see if they might be able to achieve 60 utility.

I actually think this is a fundamentally bad approach to how humans think. If we focus on obtaining a romantic life partner, something a lot of people value, and took this approach, it wouldn't be incredibly difficult to identify flaws with my current romantic situation, and perhaps think about whether I could achieve something better. At the end of this reasoning chain, I might determine that there is indeed someone better out there and take the plunge for the true romantic bliss I want. However, I might actually come to the conclusion that while my current partner and situation is not perfect, it's probably the best I can achieve given my circumstances. But this is terrible! I can hardly wipe my memory of the last week or so of thought in which I carefully examined the flaws in my relationship and situation, and now all those flaws are going to fly into my mind, and may end up causing the end of a relationship which was actually the best I could achieve! This might sound a very artificial reasoning pattern, but it's essentially the plot line of many the male protagonist in some sitcoms and films who overthink their relationships into unhappiness. Obviously if I have such behavioural patterns anyway then I may need to respond to them, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to encourage them where they don't currently exist!

I actually have similar thoughts towards many who hold religious beliefs. While I am aware that I am far more likely to be correct about the universe than them, those beliefs do many holding them fairly small harm and actually a lot of good: they provide a ready made supportive community for them. Examination of those beliefs could well be very destructive to them, and provided they are not leading them towards destructive behaviours currently, I see no reason to encourage them otherwise.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 16 March 2015 06:23:38PM *  3 points [-]

But you don't seem to have made a compelling argument that such people are worse off than epistemic maximisers.

If we just consider personal happiness, then I agree with you – it's probably even the case that epistemic satisficers are happier than epistemic maximizers. But many of us don't live for the sake of happiness alone. Furthermore, it's probably the case that epistemic maximizers are good for society as a whole. If every human had been an epistemic satisficer we never would have discovered the scientific method or eradicated small pox, for example.

Also, discovering and following your terminal values is good for you almost by definition, I would say, so either we are using terms differently or I'm misunderstanding you. Let's say one of your terminal values is to increase happiness and to reduce suffering. Because you are a Catholic you think the best way to do this is to convert as many people to Catholicism as possible (because then they won't go to hell and will go to heaven). However, if Catholicism is false, then your method is wholly suboptimal and then it lies in your interest to discover the truth and being an epistemic maximizer (rational) certainly would help with this.

With regards to your romantic example, I also agree. Romantic satisficers are probably happier than romantic maximizers. Therefore I wrote in the introduction:

For example, Schwartz et al. (2002) found "negative correlations between maximization and happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and positive correlations between maximization and depression, perfectionism, and regret."

Again: But in all those examples, we are only talking about your personal happiness. Satisficer are probably happier than maximizers, but they are less likely to reach their terminal values – if they value other things besides their own happiness, which many people do: Many people wouldn't enter the experience machine, for example. But sure, if your only terminal value is your happiness then you should definitely try hard to become a satisficer in every domain.

Comment author: Lumifer 16 March 2015 02:59:47PM 5 points [-]

Satisficing means selecting the first option that is good enough, i.e. that meets or exceeds a certain threshold of acceptability. In contrast, maximizing means the tendency to search for so long until the best possible option is found.

I see no mention of costs in these definitions.

Let's try a basic and, dare I say it, rational way of trying to achieve some outcome: you look for a better alternative until your estimate of costs for further search exceeds your estimate of the gains you would get from finding a superior option.

That's not satisficing because I don't take the first option alternative that is good enough. That's also not maximizing as I am not committed to searching for the global optimum.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 16 March 2015 05:43:16PM *  3 points [-]

Continuing my previous comment

That's not satisficing because I don't take the first option alternative that is good enough. That's also not maximizing as I am not committed to searching for the global optimum.

I agree: It's neither pure satisficing nor pure maximizing. Generally speaking, in the real world it's probably very hard to find (non-contrived) instances of pure satisficing or pure maximizing. In reality, people fall on a continuum from pure satisficers to pure maximizers (I did acknowledge this in footnotes 1 and 2, but I probably should have been clearer).

But I think it makes sense to assert that certain people exhibit more satisficer-characteristics and others exhibit more maximizer-characteristics. For example, imagine that Anna travels to 127 different countries and goes to over 2500 different cafes to find the best chocolate cookie. Anna could be meaningfully described as a "cookie-maximizer", even if she gave up after 10 years of cookie-searching although she wasn't able to find the best chocolate cookie on planet Earth. :)

Somewhat relatedly, someone might be a maximizer in a certain domain, but a satisficer in another domain. I'm for example a satisficer when it comes to food and interior decoration, but (more of) a maximizer in other domains.

Comment author: Lumifer 16 March 2015 02:59:47PM 5 points [-]

Satisficing means selecting the first option that is good enough, i.e. that meets or exceeds a certain threshold of acceptability. In contrast, maximizing means the tendency to search for so long until the best possible option is found.

I see no mention of costs in these definitions.

Let's try a basic and, dare I say it, rational way of trying to achieve some outcome: you look for a better alternative until your estimate of costs for further search exceeds your estimate of the gains you would get from finding a superior option.

That's not satisficing because I don't take the first option alternative that is good enough. That's also not maximizing as I am not committed to searching for the global optimum.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 16 March 2015 03:20:44PM *  3 points [-]

I see no mention of costs in these definitions.

Let's try a basic and, dare I say it, rational way of trying to achieve some outcome: you look for a better alternative until your estimate of costs for further search exceeds your estimate of the gains you would get from finding a superior option.

Agree. Thus in footnote 3 I wrote:

[3] Rational maximizers take the value of information and opportunity costs into account.

Continuation of this comment

Comment author: robertzk 15 March 2015 06:54:30AM 2 points [-]

Did you remove the vilification of proving arcane theorems in algebraic number theory because the LessWrong audience is more likely to fall within this demographic? (I used to be very excited about proving arcane theorems in algebraic number theory, and fully agree with you.)

Comment author: wallowinmaya 15 March 2015 08:33:47AM *  2 points [-]

You've got me there :)

Comment author: imuli 14 March 2015 08:53:59PM 3 points [-]

But what does one maximize?

We can not maximize more than one thing (except in trivial cases). It's not too hard to call the thing that we want to maximize our utility, and the balance of priorities and desires our utility function. I imagine that most of the components of that function are subject to diminishng returns, and such components I would satisfice. So I understand this whole thing as saying that these things have the potential for unbounded linear or superlinear utility?

  • epistemic rationality
  • ethics
  • social interaction
  • existance

I'm not sure if I'm confused.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 14 March 2015 10:03:14PM *  3 points [-]

But what does one maximize?

Expected utility :)

We can not maximize more than one thing (except in trivial cases).

I guess I have to disagree. Sure, in any given moment you can maximize only one thing but this is simply not true for larger time horizons. Let's illustrate this with a typical day of Imaginary John: He wakes up and goes to work at an investment bank to earn money (money maximizing) to donate it later to GiveWell (ethical maximizing). Later at night he goes on OKCupid/or to a party to find his true soulmate (romantic maximizing). He maximized three different things in just one day. But I agree that there are always trade-offs. John could had worked all day instead of going to the party.

I imagine that most of the components of that function are subject to diminishng returns, and such components I would satisfice. So I understand this whole thing as saying that these things have the potential for unbounded linear or superlinear utility?

I think that many components of my utility function are not subject to diminishing returns. Let's use your first example, "epistemic rationality". Epistemic rationality is basically about acquiring true beliefs or new (true) information. But sometimes learning new information can radically change your whole life and thus is not subject to diminishing marginal returns. To use an example: Let's imagine you are a consequentialist and donate to charities to help blind people in the USA. Then you learn about effective altruism and cost-effectiveness and decide to donate to the most effective charities. Reading such arguments has just increased your positive impact on the world by a hundredfold! (Btw, Bostrom uses the term "crucial consideration" exactly for such things.) One could make the same argument for, say, AGI programmers reading "Superintelligence" for the first time. Given that they understand this new information, it will probably be more useful to them than most of the stuff they've learnt before.

On to the next issue – Ethics: Let's say one value of mine is to reduce suffering (what could be called non-suffering maximizing). This value is also not subject to diminishing marginal returns. For example, imagine 10.000 people getting tortured (sorry). Saving the first 100 people from getting tortured is as valuable to me as saving the last 100 people.

Admittedly, with regards to social interactions there is probably an upper bound somewhere. But this upper bound is probably much higher than most seem to assume. Also, it occurred to me that one has to distinguish between the quality and the quantity of one's social interactions. The quality of one's social interactions is unlikely to be subject to diminishing marginal returns any time soon. However, the quantity of social interactions definitely is subject to diminishing marginal returns (see e.g. Dunbar's number).

Btw, "attention" is another resource that actually has increasing marginal returns (I've stolen this example from Valentine Smith who used it in a CFAR workshop).

But I agree that unbounded utility functions can be problematic (but bounded ones, too.) However, satisficing might not help you with this.

Comment author: Evan_Gaensbauer 11 March 2015 12:38:04AM 1 point [-]

Here are my thoughts having just read the summary above, not the whole essay yet.

They take the fundamental rules of existence and the human condition (the “existential status quo”) as a given and don’t try to change it.

This sentence confused me. I think it could be fixed with some examples of what would constitute an instance of challenging the "existential status quo" in action. The first example I was thinking of would be ending death or aging, except you've already got transhumanists in there.

Other examples might include: * mitigating existential risks * suggesting and working on civilization as a whole reaching a new level, such as colonizing other planets and solar systems. * trying to implement better design for the fundamental functions of ubiquitous institutions, such as medicine, science, or law.

Again, I'm just giving quick feedback. Hopefully you've already given more detail in essay. Other than that, your summary seems fine to me.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 12 March 2015 05:35:33PM 0 points [-]

Again, I'm just giving quick feedback. Hopefully you've already given more detail in essay. Other than that, your summary seems fine to me.

Thanks! And yeah, ending aging and death are some of the examples I gave in the complete essay.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 09 March 2015 09:57:22AM *  3 points [-]

I wrote an essay about the advantages (and disadvantages) of maximizing over satisficing but I’m a bit unsure about its quality, that’s why I would like to ask for feedback here before I post it on LessWrong.

Here’s a short summary:

According to research there are so called “maximizers” who tend to extensively search for the optimal solution. Other people — “satisficers” — settle for good enough and tend to accept the status quo. One can apply this distinction to many areas:

Epistemology/Belief systems: Some people, one could describe them as epistemic maximizers, try to update their beliefs until they are maximally coherent and maximally consistent with the available data. Other people, epistemic satisficers, are not as curious and are content with their belief system, even if it has serious flaws and is not particularly coherent or accurate. But they don’t go to great lengths to search for a better alternative because their current belief system is good enough for them.

Ethics: Many people are as altruistic as is necessary to feel good enough; phenomenons like “moral licensing” and “purchasing of moral satisfaction” are evidence in favor of this. One could describe this as ethical satisficing. But there are also people who try to extensively search for the best moral action, i.e. for the action that does the most good (with regards to their axiology). Effective altruists are good example for this type of ethical maximizing.

Social realm/relationships: This point is pretty obvious.

Existential/ big picture questions: I’m less sure about this point but it seems like one could apply the distinction also here. Some people wonder a lot about the big picture, spent a lot of time reflecting on their terminal values and how to reach them in an optimal way. Nick Bostrom would be good example for the type of person I have in mind here and what could be called “existential maximizing”. In contrast, other people, not necessarily less intelligent or curious, don’t spend much time thinking about such crucial considerations. They take the fundamental rules of existence and the human condition (the “existential status quo”) as a given and don’t try to change it. Relatedly, transhumanists could also be thought of as existential maximizers in the sense that they are not satisfied with the human condition and try to change it – and maybe ultimately reach an “optimal mode of existence”.

What is “better”? Well, research shows that satisficers are happier and more easygoing. Maximizers tend to be more depressed and “picky”. They can also be quite arrogant and annoying. On the other hand, maximizers are more curious and always try hard to improve their life – and the lives of other people, which is nice.

I would really love to get some feedback on it.

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