This seems plausible to me for people who don’t live and breathe math but still think Expected Utility is a tool they can’t afford not to use. I would be surprised if the typical person, even here, picks up the subtlety with any of the infinite sums and weird implication of that on the first pass. I don’t think infinite sums (and their many pitfalls) are typically taught at all until Calc II, which is not even a graduation requirement for non-STEM undergrad degrees.
People also get a lot of mileage out of realizing that IRL most problems aren’t edge cases and even fewer are corner cases—rightly skipping most of the rigor that’s necessary when discussing philosophy and purposely seeking out weird edge cases.
Now if someone is actually well versed in the math and philosophizing and saying that understanding all the implications that’s an interesting discussion I want to read.
This seems plausible to me for people who don’t live and breathe math but still think Expected Utility is a tool they can’t afford not to use. I would be surprised if the typical person, even here, picks up the subtlety with any of the infinite sums and weird implication of that on the first pass. I don’t think infinite sums (and their many pitfalls) are typically taught at all until Calc II, which is not even a graduation requirement for non-STEM undergrad degrees.
People also get a lot of mileage out of realizing that IRL most problems aren’t edge cases and even fewer are corner cases—rightly skipping most of the rigor that’s necessary when discussing philosophy and purposely seeking out weird edge cases.
Now if someone is actually well versed in the math and philosophizing and saying that understanding all the implications that’s an interesting discussion I want to read.