I guess this depends on how willing you are to bite the bullet on the mugging. I’m rather uncertain, as I don’t trust my intuition to deal with large numbers properly, but I also don’t trust math that behaves the way de Blanc describes.
If you actually accept that small probabilities of huge utilities are important and you try to consider an actual decision, you run into the informal version of this right away; when the mugger asks you for $5 dollars in exchange for 3^^^3 utilons, you consider the probability that you can persuade the mugger to give you even more utility and the probability that there is another mugger just around the corner who will offer you 4^^^4 utilons if you just offer them your last $5 rather than giving it to this mugger. This explosion of possibilies is basically the same thing described in the paper.
I guess this depends on how willing you are to bite the bullet on the mugging. I’m rather uncertain, as I don’t trust my intuition to deal with large numbers properly, but I also don’t trust math that behaves the way de Blanc describes.
If you actually accept that small probabilities of huge utilities are important and you try to consider an actual decision, you run into the informal version of this right away; when the mugger asks you for $5 dollars in exchange for 3^^^3 utilons, you consider the probability that you can persuade the mugger to give you even more utility and the probability that there is another mugger just around the corner who will offer you 4^^^4 utilons if you just offer them your last $5 rather than giving it to this mugger. This explosion of possibilies is basically the same thing described in the paper.