I think the point (well, Buchak’s point anyhow) was actually that MWI doesn’t have implications here, and that we can treat gambles like population ethics / population aesthetics questions too.
Although I think her argument convinced me in principle, in practice I suspect that there are plenty of forceful arguments for VNM-ish consistency remaining. Especially in a big complicated world that has a lot of interacting decisions in it—if there are a bunch of nested gambles, it seems like the “you can create the probability distribution that’s most aesthetically pleasing to you” argument applies best at the top level, and at subsidiary levels there’s a sort of instrumental convergence argument for why you shouldn’t be too inconsistent on small-picture stuff.
Yeah, Buchak’s point was as you described, the way I understood it. But Sean’s point was that this approach can clash with some of our moral intuitions.
I think the point (well, Buchak’s point anyhow) was actually that MWI doesn’t have implications here, and that we can treat gambles like population ethics / population aesthetics questions too.
Although I think her argument convinced me in principle, in practice I suspect that there are plenty of forceful arguments for VNM-ish consistency remaining. Especially in a big complicated world that has a lot of interacting decisions in it—if there are a bunch of nested gambles, it seems like the “you can create the probability distribution that’s most aesthetically pleasing to you” argument applies best at the top level, and at subsidiary levels there’s a sort of instrumental convergence argument for why you shouldn’t be too inconsistent on small-picture stuff.
Yeah, Buchak’s point was as you described, the way I understood it. But Sean’s point was that this approach can clash with some of our moral intuitions.