It seems like utility calculations should cancel out to within such a small margin as U(good name) - U(bad name) only very very rarely, especially when there are many different independent considerations. I worry that people may have overactive indifference detectors, and could improve their decision algorithms by learning tricks to distinguish the real slight preferences/estimates underlying what feels to them like very precise indifference but isn’t.
I agree that it may plausibly be argued that the difference should rarely fall into the small margin: U(good name) - U(bad name) (up to varying priors, utility functions, …). However, should people calculate to the point that they can resolve differences of that order of magnitude? A fast and dirty heuristic may be the way to go practically speaking; the difference in utility would be less than the utility lost in calculating it.
It seems like utility calculations should cancel out to within such a small margin as U(good name) - U(bad name) only very very rarely, especially when there are many different independent considerations. I worry that people may have overactive indifference detectors, and could improve their decision algorithms by learning tricks to distinguish the real slight preferences/estimates underlying what feels to them like very precise indifference but isn’t.
I agree that it may plausibly be argued that the difference should rarely fall into the small margin: U(good name) - U(bad name) (up to varying priors, utility functions, …). However, should people calculate to the point that they can resolve differences of that order of magnitude? A fast and dirty heuristic may be the way to go practically speaking; the difference in utility would be less than the utility lost in calculating it.