Inciting title notwithstanding, I admit I wasn’t overly impressed by this idea. The main point of this post seemed to be this:
I enter the lotteries for things I think no one else wants and that have multiple awards and that have a low-to-no cost. You’re never going to win the monetary prize, because the odds are against you. You CAN win things if the odds are in your favor.
What you are really doing here is calculating the expected utility of winning the various prizes offered and concluding that the expected utility of a minor prize is greater than that of a larger prize. I don’t think anyone on LW would disagree, because this is probably the most straightforward case of what it means to practice instrumental rationality.
I think it’s good to have this written out somewhere. This is a white belt technique in the rationality dojo context, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile to actually state and teach it.
I found that phrase to be a bit contradictory—if you don’t want something, why go for it? I suspect the answer is that the original poster assigns utility to winning a lottery regardless of the utility of the prize.
...which is why I wasn’t too impressed. What would make it more interesting is if the original poster made the normative claim that we should do so. That would generate a more intriguing debate.
Inciting title notwithstanding, I admit I wasn’t overly impressed by this idea. The main point of this post seemed to be this:
What you are really doing here is calculating the expected utility of winning the various prizes offered and concluding that the expected utility of a minor prize is greater than that of a larger prize. I don’t think anyone on LW would disagree, because this is probably the most straightforward case of what it means to practice instrumental rationality.
I think it’s good to have this written out somewhere. This is a white belt technique in the rationality dojo context, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile to actually state and teach it.
Actually, what I found striking was this:
The expected utility for me of acquiring something I do not want or need is, at most, nothing.
Are you folding in “capable of selling for net gain” to your definition of “want”?
Only when the likely gain exceeds the trouble of entering, winning, collecting, and selling.
Hence “net”.
Then, yes, apparently.
I found that phrase to be a bit contradictory—if you don’t want something, why go for it? I suspect the answer is that the original poster assigns utility to winning a lottery regardless of the utility of the prize.
That’s certainly the implication—and the point relies on the reader sharing that utility, which I don’t believe I do.
...which is why I wasn’t too impressed. What would make it more interesting is if the original poster made the normative claim that we should do so. That would generate a more intriguing debate.
I found the childish vocabulary a little offputting, honestly … but I’m also not still excited by the fact that breasts exist. :P
I was being a bit facetious, but not too much, because I admit that I my curiosity was triggered by the odd (for LessWrong) title.