Good point. I still have some hard to verbalize thoughts against this, but I’ll have to think about it more to tease them out.
Since risk aversion is a result of a ‘convex frown’ utility function, and since we’re talking about differences in number of entities, we’d have to have a utility function that is convex frown over number of entities. This means that the “shut up and multiply” rule for saving lives would be just a first order approximation that is valid near the margin. It’s certainly possible to have this type of preference, but I have a hunch that this isn’t the case.
For there to be a difference, you’d also have to be indifferent between extra observers in a populated Everett branch and extra observers in an emtpy one, but that seems likely.
Good point. I still have some hard to verbalize thoughts against this, but I’ll have to think about it more to tease them out.
Since risk aversion is a result of a ‘convex frown’ utility function, and since we’re talking about differences in number of entities, we’d have to have a utility function that is convex frown over number of entities. This means that the “shut up and multiply” rule for saving lives would be just a first order approximation that is valid near the margin. It’s certainly possible to have this type of preference, but I have a hunch that this isn’t the case.
For there to be a difference, you’d also have to be indifferent between extra observers in a populated Everett branch and extra observers in an emtpy one, but that seems likely.