Though note that utility is often fungible in small quantities, since I can always trade one good for another at market value (this fails when the quantities involved are large enough that the market can’t absorb them without affecting price, or if the object in question is difficult to liquidate, e.g. time or knowledge).
Yes but one has to be very careful. For humans scope-insensitivity usually occurs at ranges where the goods are still fungible. In the studies that Eliezer presents in that post, the issue is slightly different; here there are so many copies of a good X that adding or removing, say, 1000 of them does not affect the value of a single copy of X.
For instance, there are probably billions of birds in existence; if we would pay $80 to save 2000 birds when there are 1,000,000,000 of them, then we would probably also pay $80 to save 2000 birds when there are 999,998,000 of them. Repeating this argument a few times would mean that we should be willing to pay $800 to save 20000 birds, as opposed to the still $80 reported in the survey.
(For this argument to work entirely, we have to also argue that $800 is a small portion of a person’s total wealth, which is true in most first world countries.)
^ What he said.
Though note that utility is often fungible in small quantities, since I can always trade one good for another at market value (this fails when the quantities involved are large enough that the market can’t absorb them without affecting price, or if the object in question is difficult to liquidate, e.g. time or knowledge).
If utility isn’t fungible for large quantities, does that mean that it is rational to be scope-insensitive?
Yes but one has to be very careful. For humans scope-insensitivity usually occurs at ranges where the goods are still fungible. In the studies that Eliezer presents in that post, the issue is slightly different; here there are so many copies of a good X that adding or removing, say, 1000 of them does not affect the value of a single copy of X.
For instance, there are probably billions of birds in existence; if we would pay $80 to save 2000 birds when there are 1,000,000,000 of them, then we would probably also pay $80 to save 2000 birds when there are 999,998,000 of them. Repeating this argument a few times would mean that we should be willing to pay $800 to save 20000 birds, as opposed to the still $80 reported in the survey.
(For this argument to work entirely, we have to also argue that $800 is a small portion of a person’s total wealth, which is true in most first world countries.)