By “motivate bargaining”, I meant that humans aren’t rational utility maximizers, and the outcomes they will seek and accept are different, depending on the framing of the question. If you tell them that the rational baseline is low (and prove it using a very small set of assumptions), they’re more likely to accept a wider range of better (but not as much better as pure manipulation might give them) outcomes.
By negative-value lives, I meant negative to the aggregate you’re maximizing, not negative to themselves. Someone who gains by others’ suffering necessarily reduces the sum. The assumption that not existing is an acceptable outcome to those participants still feels problematic to me, but I do agree that eliminating unpleasant utility curves makes the problem tractable.
By “motivate bargaining”, I meant that humans aren’t rational utility maximizers, and the outcomes they will seek and accept are different, depending on the framing of the question. If you tell them that the rational baseline is low (and prove it using a very small set of assumptions), they’re more likely to accept a wider range of better (but not as much better as pure manipulation might give them) outcomes.
By negative-value lives, I meant negative to the aggregate you’re maximizing, not negative to themselves. Someone who gains by others’ suffering necessarily reduces the sum. The assumption that not existing is an acceptable outcome to those participants still feels problematic to me, but I do agree that eliminating unpleasant utility curves makes the problem tractable.