Actually, imagine for instance you have a set of preferences A1 < A2 < A3 < A4 … and B1 < B2 < B3 < B4 … such that your opinion with regards to any A compared with any B is like the above confusion
If this is meant to be a kind of introductory piece for decision theory, I don’t think it’ll work for most people. I’m a programmer (well, I know how to and used to do it for money but not currently), and my eyes start to roll into the back of my head when I read a sentence like the one above and I am not convinced it’s important. It seems to me most of the comments are from people who have already thought about preference rankings and are using this to refine there ideas/check yours. I doubt people who don’t already know this stuff (and therefor why it’s important) will take the time to understand sentences like the one above.
To work, it needs more qualitative generalizing statements (less A>B>C>D which is a pain to look at) and more examples (the first example of saving a kid is so obvious it makes one tend to think, “preference ranking is easy” which doesn’t motivate someone not otherwise motivated to do the hard work of getting through this.)
If this is meant to be a kind of introductory piece for decision theory, I don’t think it’ll work for most people. I’m a programmer (well, I know how to and used to do it for money but not currently), and my eyes start to roll into the back of my head when I read a sentence like the one above and I am not convinced it’s important. It seems to me most of the comments are from people who have already thought about preference rankings and are using this to refine there ideas/check yours. I doubt people who don’t already know this stuff (and therefor why it’s important) will take the time to understand sentences like the one above. To work, it needs more qualitative generalizing statements (less A>B>C>D which is a pain to look at) and more examples (the first example of saving a kid is so obvious it makes one tend to think, “preference ranking is easy” which doesn’t motivate someone not otherwise motivated to do the hard work of getting through this.)