It doesn’t avoid the problem if people want to vote with a percentage < 1%, and try to do so with a 0-100 value (e.g., .5 meaning .5% rather than 50%).
banx
Is it always correct to choose that action with the highest expected utility?
Suppose I have a choice between action A, which grants −100 utilons with 99.9% chance and +1000000 utilons with 0.1% chance, or action B which grants +1 utilon with 100% chance. A has an expected utility of +900.1 utilons, while B has an expected utility of +1 utilon. This decision will be available to me only once, and all future decision will involve utility changes on the order of a few utilons.
Intuitively, it seems like action A is too risky. I’ll almost certainly end up with a huge decrease in utility, just because there’s a remote chance of a windfall. Risk aversion doesn’t apply here, since we’re dealing in utility, right? So either I’m failing to truly appreciate the chance at getting 1M utilons—I’m stuck thinking about it as I would money—or this is a case where there’s reason to not take the action that maximizes expected value. Help?
EDIT: Changed the details of action A to what was intended
I don’t have a full answer to the question, but if you do feed the dog meat, one starting point would be to prefer meat that has less suffering associated with it. It is typically claimed that beef has less suffering per unit mass associated with it than pork and much less than chicken, simply because you get a lot more from one individual. The counterargument would be to claim that cows > pigs > chickens in intelligence/complexity to a great enough extent to outweigh this consideration.
I’m curious: are there specific reasons to believe that dogs need meat while humans (also omnivores) do not? A quick Google search finds lots of vegetarians happy to proclaim that dogs can be vegetarian too, but I haven’t looked into details.
Keep in mind that there is a nice theory about not being able to lie in parseltongue.
This line reminded me that Quirrel’s frequent transitions from man to snake and back seemed odd to me when I was reading. I went back to see if any of what he said after transitioning back to a man was a good candidate for a direct lie that he couldn’t tell as a snake. But I didn’t find anything. Most of what he said was phrased as speculation, rather than direct statements.
Has this been demonstrated for home environments in the developing world or sub-middle class home environments in the developed world? My prior understanding was that it had not been.
It’s less ethical if you think that you can get more resources by working, and that those resources can be used to create an ethically superior world.
I just meant that working might be an opportunity to better accomplish some goal you deem ethically relevant (e.g., by earning money and donating it or by developing FAI or the cure for some disease). I’m not arguing that it is. That depends on what the goals are and what your opportunities (both “work” and “leisure” using your definitions) are.
So you’re claiming that there is no way in which the US police and justice systems treat black people differently that isn’t reducible to intelligence or conscientiousness differences?
My temporary solution is to max out my employer’s annual match. That the maximum match is somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of my income is very convenient, as that makes me feel like I’m contributing the “expected” amount for an EA (this feeling is only important for fuzzies) but still leaves me with what seems to be a good amount to save and spend. It also allows me to avoid committing an answer to the question of whether to donate now or invest and donate later. The guaranteed, almost-immediate, soon-to-expire 100% return provided by the match wins pretty clearly over the EV of investing and donating later, and since I feel like I’m donating enough for now, I can evaluate what to do with what’s being invested later on, based on my wants and needs.
Survey completed, besides the digit ratio.
you should split your donations just as you split your investments, because of risk.
Isn’t it the case that most investment opportunities have essentially the same expected returns, due to market efficiency? In that case you want to diversify, since you can lower the variance without lowering the expected return. But if you can identify a single giving opportunity that has a significantly higher expected return than the alternatives, then it seems like you’d want to concentrate on that one opportunity.
You could also just think that GiveWell doesn’t currently have as much room for more funding as the recommended charities do, even though GiveWell may disagree with that assessment.
I remind myself that I care about each individual that can be helped by my action. Even if there are huge numbers of individuals I can’t help, there are some I CAN help, and helping each one is worthwhile.
I thought it was bleeding because of the magical resonance that was actually happening at that time when other Harry hit LV with the stuporfy.
I like bogleheads.org. I think I found it from someone’s comment on LW. They advocate a simple portfolio of low-cost index funds. The community is really helpful for figuring out the details.
From GW’s perspective, each of their top charities can consume a certain amount of additional money before the expected value of an additional donation decreases by some amount. Their goal is to move money such that each charity hits that target, and then they’ll reassess. So they recommend donors split donations so that, as a whole, these targets are hit and EV is maximized. From your perspective, you may decide that concentrating your entire donation in one organization has a higher EV, since that organization has a generally higher EV relative to the others and since your action isn’t going to affect the actions of the rest of GW’s audience.
Does she know that you (presumably) don’t believe in supernatural things? Does she know why? How do you explain (to yourself) her stories about seeing spirits. Those seem to be a lot more serious than simple beliefs in absurd things like “healing powers” (or astrology, etc). Do you really believe she’s not crazy? Is she making it up? (If so, why?) Using drugs? Believes they’re there but doesn’t actually see them, just “senses” them or something?
What do folks here think about blood donation? Is the consensus that it’s not an efficient way to help people?
If you want to take one more step of complexity (and assuming you have at least $6000 to invest) you can split your money between VTSMX and VGTSX as Unnamed mentioned. In doing so you would be diversified across the global economy, instead of just across the US economy. You would want 20% to 50% of your funds that are in stocks to be in international stocks.
Vanguard Target Date funds (e.g., VFIFX) are also a good option if you want something you never have to manage, and they have a minimum investment of $1000. They allow you to invest in a pre-determined allocation of domestic and international stocks and bonds, and keep you balanced at a target allocation that gets more conservative as you get closer to retirement age.
You should also strongly consider investing in a Roth IRA if your income is not over the limit for contributions (and if it is, there are ways around that). Contributions to a Roth IRA can be withdrawn at any time, though there are restrictions on accessing the investment returns. Your employer’s 401(k) plan is another good option for long-term investments.
The Bogleheads wiki and forum are excellent resources for learning about low-cost long-term investing.
But I agree with everyone else: if you want to do the simplest thing and stop thinking about it, invest in VTSMX.
Here’s Optimal Employment, where the working in Australia idea is discussed, and here’s the Optimal Employment Open Thread.