This post is excellent. Part of this is the extensive use of clear examples and the talking through of anticipated sticking points, objections, and mistakes, and its motivating, exploratory approach (not plucked out of thin vacuum).
For example, if we have decided that we would be indifferent between a tasty sandwich and a 1⁄500 chance of being a whale for tomorrow, and that we’d be indifferent between a tasty sandwich and a 30% chance of sun instead of the usual rain, then we should also be indifferent between a certain sunny day and a 1⁄150 chance of being a whale.
I think you didn’t specify strong enough premises to justify this deduction; I think you didn’t rule out cases where your utility function would depend on probability and outcome in such a way that simply multiplying is invalid. I might have missed it.
Edit: D’oh! Never mind. This is the whole point of an Expected Utility theorem...
...{50%: sunny+sandwich; 50% baseline} and {50%: sunny; 50%: sandwich}, and other such bets. (We need a better solution for rendering probability distributions in prose).
I doubt that significantly better compression is possible. I expect that communicating, uncompressed, the outcome and the probability is necessary, so stronger compression seems doubtful than what you did, which seems minimal with respect to those constraints. However, you might have been referring to clarity more generally.
I would avoid the use of some of the more grim examples in this context. Putting nonconsensual, violent sex, torture, and ruination of vulnerable people through mental manipulation alongside ice cream, a day as a whale, and a sunny day would overstep my flippant-empathetic-Gentle-depressing threshold, and it seems like it would be possible to come up with comparably effective examples that didn’t. Make of that what you will. (I encourage others to reply with their own assessment, particularly those who also felt (slightly) uncomfortable on this point, since I imagine their activation energy for saying so would be highest.)
I see what you guys are getting at, but it was useful to go somewhere hellish to demonstrate certain invariances, and the quoted comment was too good to pass up. I could have used more sensitive examples, but it did go through my mind that I wanted to make it horrible for some reason… I won’t change it, but will steer away from such examples in the future.
That said, it’s interesting that people react to the thought of rape and torture, but not the universe getting paperclipped, which is many many orders of magnitude worse.
I get more angry at a turtle getting thrown against the wall than I do at genocides… I guess some things just hit you hard out of proportion to their actual value.
That said, it’s interesting that people react to the thought of rape and torture, but not the universe getting paperclipped, which is many many orders of magnitude worse.
I guess rape and torture hit closer to home for some people… no one has ever actually experienced the universe getting paperclipped, nor is it remotely likely to happen tomorrow. Lots of very real people will be raped and tortured tomorrow, though.
That said, it’s interesting that people react to the thought of rape and torture, but not the universe getting paperclipped, which is many many orders of magnitude worse.
I get more angry at a turtle getting thrown against the wall than I do at genocides… I guess some things just hit you hard out of proportion to their actual value.
Ooops, you tried to feel a utility. Go directly to type theory hell; do not pass go, do not collect 200 utils.
Ooops, you tried to feel a utility. Go directly to type theory hell; do not pass go, do not collect 200 utils.
I don’t think this example is evidence against trying to ‘feel’ a utility. You didn’t account for scope insensitivity and the qualitative difference between the two things you think you’re comparing.
You need to compare the feeling of the turtle thrown against the wall to the cumulative feeling when you think about EACH individual beheading, shooting, orphaned child, open grave, and every other atrocity of the genocide. Thinking about the vague concept “genocide” doesn’t use the same part of your brain as thinking about the turtle incident.
This post is excellent. Part of this is the extensive use of clear examples and the talking through of anticipated sticking points, objections, and mistakes, and its motivating, exploratory approach (not plucked out of thin vacuum).
I think you didn’t specify strong enough premises to justify this deduction; I think you didn’t rule out cases where your utility function would depend on probability and outcome in such a way that simply multiplying is invalid. I might have missed it.
Edit: D’oh! Never mind. This is the whole point of an Expected Utility theorem...
I doubt that significantly better compression is possible. I expect that communicating, uncompressed, the outcome and the probability is necessary, so stronger compression seems doubtful than what you did, which seems minimal with respect to those constraints. However, you might have been referring to clarity more generally.
I would avoid the use of some of the more grim examples in this context. Putting nonconsensual, violent sex, torture, and ruination of vulnerable people through mental manipulation alongside ice cream, a day as a whale, and a sunny day would overstep my flippant-empathetic-Gentle-depressing threshold, and it seems like it would be possible to come up with comparably effective examples that didn’t. Make of that what you will. (I encourage others to reply with their own assessment, particularly those who also felt (slightly) uncomfortable on this point, since I imagine their activation energy for saying so would be highest.)
Yeah, the violent rape and torture jarred unpleasantly with me as well. I liked the other examples and the post in general.
I see what you guys are getting at, but it was useful to go somewhere hellish to demonstrate certain invariances, and the quoted comment was too good to pass up. I could have used more sensitive examples, but it did go through my mind that I wanted to make it horrible for some reason… I won’t change it, but will steer away from such examples in the future.
That said, it’s interesting that people react to the thought of rape and torture, but not the universe getting paperclipped, which is many many orders of magnitude worse.
I get more angry at a turtle getting thrown against the wall than I do at genocides… I guess some things just hit you hard out of proportion to their actual value.
I guess rape and torture hit closer to home for some people… no one has ever actually experienced the universe getting paperclipped, nor is it remotely likely to happen tomorrow. Lots of very real people will be raped and tortured tomorrow, though.
Thanks for taking on board the remarks!
Ooops, you tried to feel a utility. Go directly to type theory hell; do not pass go, do not collect 200 utils.
I don’t think this example is evidence against trying to ‘feel’ a utility. You didn’t account for scope insensitivity and the qualitative difference between the two things you think you’re comparing.
You need to compare the feeling of the turtle thrown against the wall to the cumulative feeling when you think about EACH individual beheading, shooting, orphaned child, open grave, and every other atrocity of the genocide. Thinking about the vague concept “genocide” doesn’t use the same part of your brain as thinking about the turtle incident.