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Hedonic asymmetries

Creating really good outcomes for humanity seems hard. We get bored. If we don’t get bored, we still don’t like the idea of joy without variety. And joyful experiences only seems good if they are real...

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Distributed public goods provision

Most people benefit significantly from privately funded public goods (e.g. Wikipedia). If we all contribute to such public goods, then we can all end up better off. But as an individual it’s almost...

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Demand offsetting

For the last few years I’ve been avoiding factory farmed eggs because I think they involve a lot of unnecessary suffering. I’m hesitant to be part of that even if it’s not a big deal on utilitarian...

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Improving capital gains taxes

As I’ve mentioned, I think the tax code could be improved. In a departure from my usual style, this post fleshes out some fairness-based arguments for one of my favorite changes. (I think that this...

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Secure homes for digital people

Being a “digital person” could be scary—if I don’t have control over the hardware I’m running on, then someone else could get my code and run tons of copies in horrible conditions. (See also: qntm’s...

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EDT with updating double counts

I recently got confused thinking about the following case: Calculator bet: I am offered the opportunity to bet on a mathematical statement X to which I initially assign 50% probability (perhaps X =...

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What is causality to an evidential decision theorist?

(Subsumed by: Timeless Decision Theory, EDT=CDT) People sometimes object to evidential decision theory by saying: “It seems like the distinction between correlation and causation is really important...

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Decision theory and dynamic inconsistency

Here is my current take on decision theory: When making a decision after observing X, we should condition (or causally intervene) on statements like “My decision algorithm outputs Y after observing...

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Three reasons to cooperate

In this post I’ll discuss three reasons to cooperate in a truly one-shot prisoner’s dilemma: Kindness: You care about the other player. Correlation. Your decision is correlated with the other player’s...

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Self-driving car bets

This month I lost a bunch of bets. Back in early 2016 I bet at even odds that self-driving ride sharing would be available in 10 US cities by July 2023. Then I made similar bets a dozen times because...

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