Not sure I understand your question, but:
I assume that each civilization only cares about itself. So one civilization succeeding does not “lead to large positive utilities for all future civilisations”, only for itself. If civilization A assigns positive or negative value to civilization B succeeding, the expected utility calculations become more complicated.
You cannot “let the game end”. The fact that the game ends when one player receives R only represents the fact that each player knows that no previous player has received R (i.e., we arguably know that no civilization so far has successfully colonized space in our neighborhood).
Dear Americans,
While spending a holiday in the New Orleans and Mississippi region, I was baffled by the typical temperatures in air-conditioned rooms. The point of air conditioning is to make people feel comfortable, right? It is obviously very bad at achieving this. I saw shivering girls with blue lips waiting in the airport. I saw ladies wearing a jacket with them which they put on as soon as they entered an air-conditioned room. The rooms were often so cold that I felt relieved the moment I left them and went back into the heat. Cooling down less than to the optimally comfortable temperature would make some economical and ecological sense, and would make the transition between outside and inside less brutal. Cooling down more seems patently absurd.
What is going on here? Some possible explanations that come to mind:
Employees who have to wear suits and ties prefer lower temperatures than tourists in shorts and T-shirts.
Overweight people prefer lower temperatures than skinny girls, and the high obesity rates in America are well-known.
Some places (like airports) may intentionally want to prevent people from hanging around for too long without a good reason.
Still, the above points seem nowhere near sufficient to explain the phenomenon. The temperatures seem uncomfortably low even for people wearing a suit with a tie. Places like cinemas clearly want their customers to feel comfortable, and their employees don’t wear suits.
Thanks for clarifying.