

Ask HN: Thought experiment -- what is the true value of an asset? - JabavuAdams

Lets imagine a situation where we're watching a world from the outside, without being able to send information in to it.<p>Now suppose that we on the outside know, beyond a doubt that the model world will be destroyed unless the model inhabitants build a certain expensive artifact -- too expensive for any individual to build. Maybe we're to be the agents of the destruction, or maybe we can predict the future. Whatever. The essential points are that we know "if not X then destruction", that building X will require collective allocation of resources, and that the model inhabitants are uncertain about this future.<p>Also, the world will be destroyed soon. Say within the lifetime of the majority of our model people, so that most of them can expect to see the end of the world. The world will be destroyed in a way that does not confirm widely held religious beliefs. In other words it should appear to them as a Bad Thing, not a Good Thing.<p>Ok, questions: how should the model people value some person's plan to build X to avoid disaster? What is the true value of X? Are there different reasonable answers, or only one? Should we prefer metrics that are more likely to cause X to be built, or is that irrelevant?
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anigbrowl
The basic value calculation is the opportunity cost of X, ie the sum of value
from other things that could have been obtained instead. This must be compared
to the opportunity cost of _not_ building X. For us that answer is obvious
(essentially: infinity because everyone will die), but the model people are
forced to estimate the probability of Doom.

Of course, a single probability number is not much good because it is open to
dispute in proportion to the opportunity cost of X (as we see all the time in
debates about climate change). Bayesian inference is the practice of updating
estimates of probability based on the accumulation of information...but as the
process is counterintuitive for most people, asking a wide majority to follow
some course involving certain sacrifice for uncertain result is still going to
be a very hard sell.

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lhorie
Reminds me of this philosophy article

<http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal>

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gojomo
Are you John Titor?

