I might have higher probability thresholds for what I consider Pascalian, but itâs also a matter of how much of my time and resources I have to give. This feels directly intuitive to me, and it can be cashed out in terms of normative uncertainty about decision theory/âmy risk appetite. I limit my budget for views that are more risk neutral.
Voting is low commitment, so not Pascalian this way. Devoting your career to nuclear policy seems Pascalian to me. Working on nuclear policy among many other things you work on doesnât seem Pascalian. Fighting in a war only with deciding the main outcome of who wins/âloses in mind seems Pascalian.
Some of these things may have other benefits regardless of whether you change the main binary-ish outcome you might have in mind. That can make them not Pascalian.
Also, people do these things without thinking much or at all about the probability that theyâd affect the main outcome. Sometimes theyâre âdoing their partâ, or itâs a matter of identity or signaling. Those arenât necessarily bad reasons. But theyâre not even bothering to check whether it would be Pascalian.
EDIT: Iâd also guess the people self-selecting into doing this work, especially without thinking about the probabilities, would have high implied probabilities of affecting the main binary-ish outcome, if we interpreted them as primarily concerned with that.
I might have higher probability thresholds for what I consider Pascalian, but itâs also a matter of how much of my time and resources I have to give. This feels directly intuitive to me, and it can be cashed out in terms of normative uncertainty about decision theory/âmy risk appetite. I limit my budget for views that are more risk neutral.
Voting is low commitment, so not Pascalian this way. Devoting your career to nuclear policy seems Pascalian to me. Working on nuclear policy among many other things you work on doesnât seem Pascalian. Fighting in a war only with deciding the main outcome of who wins/âloses in mind seems Pascalian.
Some of these things may have other benefits regardless of whether you change the main binary-ish outcome you might have in mind. That can make them not Pascalian.
Also, people do these things without thinking much or at all about the probability that theyâd affect the main outcome. Sometimes theyâre âdoing their partâ, or itâs a matter of identity or signaling. Those arenât necessarily bad reasons. But theyâre not even bothering to check whether it would be Pascalian.
EDIT: Iâd also guess the people self-selecting into doing this work, especially without thinking about the probabilities, would have high implied probabilities of affecting the main binary-ish outcome, if we interpreted them as primarily concerned with that.