My answer is that the intuitions in favour of expected value require enough repetitions for it to even out. If you were facing enough Pascal’s mugging situations such that it would even out, and it wouldn’t encourage more mugging, then I would say that you should pay, otherwise it depends on your values.
I’m not sure I understand. Does this mean that we should not do any work on human extinction work because there have not been enough repetitions (or indeed any repetitions) of previous instances of humanity being made extinct? (or replace extinction with existential and the same argument might apply?)
By “enough repetitions”, I meant that it makes more sense to use a straight expected value calculation the higher the ratio of the frequency to the inverse probability. So let’s suppose you’re playing Russian Roulette with 12 chambers. The inverse probability of dying would be 12 and lets suppose you’re going to be playing it 12 times (assuming you don’t die first). That is a reasonable ratio so it makes a decent amount of sense to use the expected value. Not that the ratio did not involve the number of times you died, but the number of times the game was played.
My answer is that the intuitions in favour of expected value require enough repetitions for it to even out. If you were facing enough Pascal’s mugging situations such that it would even out, and it wouldn’t encourage more mugging, then I would say that you should pay, otherwise it depends on your values.
I’m not sure I understand. Does this mean that we should not do any work on human extinction work because there have not been enough repetitions (or indeed any repetitions) of previous instances of humanity being made extinct? (or replace extinction with existential and the same argument might apply?)
By “enough repetitions”, I meant that it makes more sense to use a straight expected value calculation the higher the ratio of the frequency to the inverse probability. So let’s suppose you’re playing Russian Roulette with 12 chambers. The inverse probability of dying would be 12 and lets suppose you’re going to be playing it 12 times (assuming you don’t die first). That is a reasonable ratio so it makes a decent amount of sense to use the expected value. Not that the ratio did not involve the number of times you died, but the number of times the game was played.