Expected Value of Life

[Speedlimits]

If Death has 0 expected value. Is it logical to kill yourself if you are 49% happy and 51% unhappy? It seems that life should only be worth living if you are happy a larger percentage of the time than you are unhappy. Is this valid?

[madnak]

You're assuming EV is strictly proportional to happiness/unhappiness. If I supported that assumption, then I'd say yes.

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
You're assuming EV is strictly proportional to happiness/unhappiness. If I supported that assumption, then I'd say yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Happiness is the ultimate goal in life. Do you support that assumption?

[SBR]

Are you suggesting that being unhappy is worse than death?

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you suggesting that being unhappy is worse than death?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd rather be dead than be unhappy for the majority of my life yes.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]

I'd rather be dead than be unhappy for the majority of my life yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does happiness only come in two flavors?
If unhappy means my AA's are outdrawn for weeks on end that's a level I can deal with.
If unhappy is somebody has me tied to a wall and taking liberties with me for months at a time, that seems a bit much.
hmmm... maybe ..

In any case, I don't think the question is valid if happy/unhappy are given only values of 1 and 0. I can put up with 2 hours of waiting in the cold for 30 minutes of hot passion.

luckyme

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You're assuming EV is strictly proportional to happiness/unhappiness. If I supported that assumption, then I'd say yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Happiness is the ultimate goal in life. Do you support that assumption?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. I'd rather be a miserable genius than a happy fool. Strength, significance, and truth are all goals I place above happiness.

Which isn't to say I agree with your point, I do. I think it would have been +EV for me to kill myself about 10 years ago. Now things are "looking up," as they say, and "the money's in the pot," so to speak.

But let's say I knew that if I lived I would cure cancer completely, but my life will be mildly unpleasant at all times. Do I consider suicide +EV? No.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
I can put up with 2 hours of waiting in the cold for 30 minutes of hot passion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if the happiness of hot passion is worth 5 times as much as the suffering of waiting in the cold, then that's entirely consistent with the principle, isn't it? And that's what you're saying, basically - x units of hot passion are worth >4x units of waiting in the cold.

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You're assuming EV is strictly proportional to happiness/unhappiness. If I supported that assumption, then I'd say yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Happiness is the ultimate goal in life. Do you support that assumption?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. I'd rather be a miserable genius than a happy fool. Strength, significance, and truth are all goals I place above happiness.

Which isn't to say I agree with your point, I do. I think it would have been +EV for me to kill myself about 10 years ago. Now things are "looking up," as they say, and "the money's in the pot," so to speak.

But let's say I knew that if I lived I would cure cancer completely, but my life will be mildly unpleasant at all times. Do I consider suicide +EV? No.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you agree with my point? It is interesting to note that you place truth above happiness. I'm not sure many people do.

[madnak]

Most people don't, without question.

But it's a valid question Dostoyevsky brings up. Which is better: cheap happiness or sublime suffering?

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
Most people don't, without question.

But it's a valid question Dostoyevsky brings up. Which is better: cheap happiness or sublime suffering?

[/ QUOTE ]

Is this question subjective? I too would rather be a miserable genius over a happy fool.

In my mind, adding something to humanity would give my life more meaning. Where as being a happy fool would give my life no meaning, of course the happy fool would not know this.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Which is better: cheap happiness or sublime suffering?

[/ QUOTE ]

That seems to illustrate that it's not happiness that matters. The 'better' referred to must be on a non-happiness scale.
Still sublime suffering gets the nod, and the nod, and the nod.

luckyme

[Skidoo]

[ QUOTE ]
Happiness is the ultimate goal in life. Do you support that assumption?

[/ QUOTE ]

That depends on which is more important: feeling good or doing good.

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Happiness is the ultimate goal in life. Do you support that assumption?

[/ QUOTE ]

That depends on which is more important: feeling good or doing good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok just making sure it was subjective.

[Propertarian]

You are assuming that an unhappy moment has a negative utility (with death equaling zero). But I don't think most people agree with that (it means death is better than being unhappy), nor do I. If death equals zero, unhappiness is some low positive score almost always.

[madnak]

Almost always? Heh.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
No. I'd rather be a miserable genius than a happy fool. Strength, significance, and truth are all goals I place above happiness.

[/ QUOTE ] According to neurology, even when people are saying they are pursuing things like strenght, significance and truth for their own sake, they are really just pursuing happiness fundementally and indirectly. See Richard Layard's "Happiness".

[hmkpoker]

That's a psychodynamic theory, not neurology.

[madnak]

Semantics. At any rate, we're talking about value, not behavior. Even if it's insane to pursue something other than happiness, that doesn't mean it's not correct.

[traz]

It would depend on the degree of unhappiness vs the degree of happiness. What if I'm unhappy for 51% of my life, but its only to a small degree? And then the 49% of my life where i'm happy, i'm REALLY happy? It'd be -EV then.

[Dan.]

[ QUOTE ]
It would depend on the degree of unhappiness vs the degree of happiness. What if I'm unhappy for 51% of my life, but its only to a small degree? And then the 49% of my life where i'm happy, i'm REALLY happy? It'd be -EV then.

[/ QUOTE ]

Precisely my thought. Using random, subjective quantification: if being unhappy is a -3 to me, but being happy is a +5000. Then clearly it's +EV to stay alive, even given the 49/51 distribution.

[ALawPoker]

You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It would depend on the degree of unhappiness vs the degree of happiness. What if I'm unhappy for 51% of my life, but its only to a small degree? And then the 49% of my life where i'm happy, i'm REALLY happy? It'd be -EV then.

[/ QUOTE ]

Precisely my thought. Using random, subjective quantification: if being unhappy is a -3 to me, but being happy is a +5000. Then clearly it's +EV to stay alive, even given the 49/51 distribution.

[/ QUOTE ]

What if the converse is true as well though?

[Dan.]

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What if the converse is true as well though?

[/ QUOTE ]

Then kill yourself. Your argument is fine as long as you add a depth of severity to it. Just saying you're unhappy 51% of the time is not enough.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[/ QUOTE ]

And maybe you'll end up kidnapped and tortured for months on end.

People are so blind and hypocritical about happiness and suffering. Maybe it's just a symptom of our culture, in which so few people ever experience any significant external suffering. If I remember, when the situation was reversed everyone had a very different opinion.

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What if the converse is true as well though?

[/ QUOTE ]

Then kill yourself. Your argument is fine as long as you add a depth of severity to it. Just saying you're unhappy 51% of the time is not enough.

[/ QUOTE ]

The general concept is then logical. I agree the premise needs to be more thoroughly explained if it is going to be subjected to scrutiny.

[gull]

Well, if the goal is to maximize the area under your happiness curve, then killing the happiness function with a death step function may not actually help.

[madnak]

It's not the area under the happiness curve, though. I don't know if you're really making a mistake or just being imprecise, but you have to take the area of the curve above the x-axis for positive values and subtract the area below the x-axis for negative values. If F(t) is always negative for the domain and is decreasing, then suicide is definitely the best option.

[madnak]

Sorry, it doesn't matter whether F(t) is negative, just that it's decreasing.

[valenzuela]

[ QUOTE ]
You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

[/ QUOTE ]

Given that this argument is inherently illogical, a "QFT" without elaboration hardly seems appropriate.

[SBR]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[/ QUOTE ]

And maybe you'll end up kidnapped and tortured for months on end.

People are so blind and hypocritical about happiness and suffering. Maybe it's just a symptom of our culture, in which so few people ever experience any significant external suffering. If I remember, when the situation was reversed everyone had a very different opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd rather experience the worst pain and suffering possible for the rest of my life than die. Anything is better than nothing.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
Semantics. At any rate, we're talking about value, not behavior. Even if it's insane to pursue something other than happiness, that doesn't mean it's not correct.

[/ QUOTE ] Not semantics. 99% of people, in the neurological study I was thinking of, defined what was occuring in their brains as "happiness"; and that thing is what people try to pursue.

If we invoke the "ought implies can" principle; than it is not correct to pursue something other than happiness for that things intrinsic value because it isn't physiologically possible for most people.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd rather experience the worst pain and suffering possible for the rest of my life than die. Anything is better than nothing.

[/ QUOTE ] Like I said, pain and suffering should be thought of as a low positive ammount of utility as opposed to a negative number for most people most of the time.

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
Given that this argument is inherently illogical, a "QFT" without elaboration hardly seems appropriate.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't seem like an illogical argument to me. When you kill yourself you are essentially giving up. Why can't a person who is unhappy 51% of the time work to improve his situation? It wouldn't take much to swing the balance to 51% happiness.

This entire argument assumes humans have zero control over their happiness, which I disagree with. Assuming your happiness might improve in the future also assumes you might be able to take steps to make that happen.

Not to mention, as others have said, that the happiness is worth much more compared to the unhappiness. Most humans go through a bunch of unpleasant crap on a daily basis in search of those fleeting moments of happiness. I suppose they should all kill themselves.

[SBR]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd rather experience the worst pain and suffering possible for the rest of my life than die. Anything is better than nothing.

[/ QUOTE ] Like I said, pain and suffering should be thought of as a low positive ammount of utility as opposed to a negative number for most people most of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would agree with this. However I would also claim that pain and suffering more often has medium or high positive utility than it has negative utility.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[/ QUOTE ]

And maybe you'll end up kidnapped and tortured for months on end.

People are so blind and hypocritical about happiness and suffering. Maybe it's just a symptom of our culture, in which so few people ever experience any significant external suffering. If I remember, when the situation was reversed everyone had a very different opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Madnak, I think you misunderstood my point. Yes, you could also be raped and tortured or whatever. My point is not that these things are less likely to exist, it's that when life is good ("happy") it innately carries more positive equity than the times when life is bad ("unhappy") subtract in equity. The OP assumed we would be happy 49% of the time and unhappy 51% of the time, my point is that this is worth it.

We have an innate will to live. Happy and unhappy are relative terms to the rest of society. It's important to note that. Somebody who is 50/50 on the happy/unhappy scale, therefore, still has a strong will to live. Someone who is 49/51 still does too. Even though they are more likely to be unhappy, the innate will to live (and within that, the innate will to find disproportionate value in the good times, and inexplicable value in the neutral times) will mean that life is still fulfilling.

To put it in more concrete terms, if I was tortured for 51 days, then lived a lavish life on Beverly Hills with the woman of my dreams for 49 days, this (to me) would be better than dying. If you disagree, maybe your instinct to survive is less pronounced than mine.

If you think this argument is "inherently illogical" feel free to explain why. As it stands all you've done is give an example that fits right in.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[/ QUOTE ]

And maybe you'll end up kidnapped and tortured for months on end.

People are so blind and hypocritical about happiness and suffering. Maybe it's just a symptom of our culture, in which so few people ever experience any significant external suffering. If I remember, when the situation was reversed everyone had a very different opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd rather experience the worst pain and suffering possible for the rest of my life than die. Anything is better than nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a recent poll in which the vast majority of people wouldn't accept even a week of severe torture in exchange for an order of magnitude increase in happiness.

You may be right, or you may not, about yourself. I can't say you haven't been through severe suffering - the other poster seemed clearly to have never experienced anything of the kind. What I will say is that, while it's very possible for someone to experience extreme suffering and still hold your position, I don't believe for an instant that your position can be justified if you haven't experienced a certain qualitative degree of suffering that I'll call "trauma."

And regardless of whether you'd want to survive, I think in such a case you'd agree that humans are capable of much more pain than pleasure. There are exceptions to the general rule - Dostoyevsky's description of his epilepsy, for example - but typically it seems people describe things like orgasms or "warm fuzzy feelings" as the heights of happiness. Even the mildest trauma makes such things look very, very small. I mean to spend much of my life searching for ecstatic states to rival traumatic states, but I don't believe I'll ever find them. And that's the point - anyone who says that potential happiness is greater than potential suffering is ignorant, in my opinion.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Madnak, I think you misunderstood my point. Yes, you could also be raped and tortured or whatever. My point is not that these things are less likely to exist, it's that when life is good ("happy") it innately carries more positive equity than the times when life is bad ("unhappy") subtract in equity. The OP assumed we would be happy 49% of the time and unhappy 51% of the time, my point is that this is worth it.

[/ QUOTE ]

And this is exactly what I disagree with.

[ QUOTE ]
We have an innate will to live. Happy and unhappy are relative terms to the rest of society. It's important to note that. Somebody who is 50/50 on the happy/unhappy scale, therefore, still has a strong will to live. Someone who is 49/51 still does too. Even though they are more likely to be unhappy, the innate will to live (and within that, the innate will to find disproportionate value in the good times, and inexplicable value in the neutral times) will mean that life is still fulfilling.

To put it in more concrete terms, if I was tortured for 51 days, then lived a lavish life on Beverly Hills with the woman of my dreams for 49 days, this (to me) would be better than dying. If you disagree, maybe your instinct to survive is less pronounced than mine.

If you think this argument is "inherently illogical" feel free to explain why. As it stands all you've done is give an example that fits right in.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fulfillment isn't what I'm discussing, as I believe fulfillment can exist even in misery - fulfillment and happiness are only slightly related IMO.

But empirical evidence and personal experience tell me you're very wrong about happiness. In fact, the opposite is true. Examples and evidence? Well, a good start... First, people who are severely tortured frequently live the rest of their lives in horrible depression, regardless of external conditions. Not only does the pain of their experience never leave, but very often they express an inability to feel happiness at all following the trauma. There are people who overcome it, but even they almost never hold your position (Victor Frankl has some interesting perspectives on this). Second, lottery winners and others that experience a dramatic change in their quality of life typically report only a very minimal increase in happiness. Almost universally it doesn't make them anywhere near as happy as they had expected. Also, evidence shows that people are awful at predicting what will make them happy - only experience is a reliable indicator, regardless of financial, social, and intellectual status.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Not semantics. 99% of people, in the neurological study I was thinking of, defined what was occuring in their brains as "happiness"; and that thing is what people try to pursue.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have a link to the study? I'd bet a lot that you're oversimplifying and overgeneralizing it. At minimum it can't have accounted for any extreme situations. Given a choice between dopamine and survival, most people will choose survival. Of course, the dopamine tries to follow along, but things like fear of death can be equally powerful motivators. And the things that "come out" of the prefrontal cortex are very interesting as well, and we're nowhere near understanding them. "Happiness," in any way that it can be neurologically defined, is not the sole motivator of human action.

[ QUOTE ]
If we invoke the "ought implies can" principle

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't accept that principle.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Given that this argument is inherently illogical, a "QFT" without elaboration hardly seems appropriate.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't seem like an illogical argument to me. When you kill yourself you are essentially giving up. Why can't a person who is unhappy 51% of the time work to improve his situation? It wouldn't take much to swing the balance to 51% happiness.

This entire argument assumes humans have zero control over their happiness, which I disagree with. Assuming your happiness might improve in the future also assumes you might be able to take steps to make that happen.

Not to mention, as others have said, that the happiness is worth much more compared to the unhappiness. Most humans go through a bunch of unpleasant crap on a daily basis in search of those fleeting moments of happiness. I suppose they should all kill themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of this I've touched on to some degree in the above posts. Again, if you consider the things most people go through every day to be suffering, you're like five whole categories away from the kind of suffering that would justify suicide. When you get down there, let me know how you're thinking. Losing your keys, being underdressed for the weather, having a moment of embarrassment, experiencing passing boredom - these are the "trials" people go through on a regular basis. And yeah, a good [censored] is enough to make up for a whole slew of them.

But we're talking about EV and implied odds here. Your reasoning is invalid because the context of the OP assuming a -EV proposition. You're trying to refute it by bringing up +EV propositions. In order to fit the conditions of the OP, you must increase the level of suffering or decrease the level of happiness to make the overall situation a -EV proposition. Also in terms of making things better in the future, your implied odds must be negative to fit the OP.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's these situations the OP is referring to - I don't think anyone is suggesting the average person would have anything to gain by committing suicide.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Madnak, I think you misunderstood my point. Yes, you could also be raped and tortured or whatever. My point is not that these things are less likely to exist, it's that when life is good ("happy") it innately carries more positive equity than the times when life is bad ("unhappy") subtract in equity. The OP assumed we would be happy 49% of the time and unhappy 51% of the time, my point is that this is worth it.

[/ QUOTE ]

And this is exactly what I disagree with.

[/ QUOTE ]

So basically you disagree that we are wired with an innate will to live/appreciation of life?




[ QUOTE ]
Fulfillment isn't what I'm discussing, as I believe fulfillment can exist even in misery

[/ QUOTE ]

So then, why in misery would it be equitable to end your life? Isn't fulfillment something that scores a point for being alive?

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Madnak, I think you misunderstood my point. Yes, you could also be raped and tortured or whatever. My point is not that these things are less likely to exist, it's that when life is good ("happy") it innately carries more positive equity than the times when life is bad ("unhappy") subtract in equity. The OP assumed we would be happy 49% of the time and unhappy 51% of the time, my point is that this is worth it.

[/ QUOTE ]

And this is exactly what I disagree with.

[/ QUOTE ]

So basically you disagree that we are wired with an innate will to live/appreciation of life?

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree that potential happiness is stronger than potential suffering. That is to say, I believe that people are capable of much more severe suffering than happiness, and that suffering is a much "easier" state to fall into than happiness. I don't know whether we're wired with an innate appreciation for life, but of course we're wired with an innate will to live. As I said in my first post, I don't believe an accounting based purely on happiness and suffering is a valid approach. There are other variables to consider, and thus even if a person's life is -EV in terms of happiness/suffering, that doesn't necessarily imply that suicide is the best option.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Fulfillment isn't what I'm discussing, as I believe fulfillment can exist even in misery

[/ QUOTE ]

So then, why in misery would it be equitable to end your life? Isn't fulfillment something that scores a point for being alive?

[/ QUOTE ]

It wouldn't necessarily be, but I don't consider fulfillment a form of happiness. Fulfillment itself can even be painful or miserable.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know whether we're wired with an innate appreciation for life, but of course we're wired with an innate will to live.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I see it, you can't have one without the other.


[ QUOTE ]
Fulfillment itself can even be painful or miserable.

[/ QUOTE ]

How? Please explain.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't know whether we're wired with an innate appreciation for life, but of course we're wired with an innate will to live.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I see it, you can't have one without the other.

[/ QUOTE ]

Believe me, sometimes I could do without my will to live.


[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Fulfillment itself can even be painful or miserable.

[/ QUOTE ]

How? Please explain.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really hate to recommend him, but C.S. Lewis actually does a decent job of explaining this in Surprised by Joy. Also Frankl as I mentioned before. But at any rate, some of the most worthwhile moment are painful to the point of being unbearable. I can only vouch for that personally, and give recommendations (oh also anything by Dostoyevsky), because I'm not sure if it's even possible to do research on the subject at this juncture. At any rate, it's possible to feel awful in every way, and still find an experience meaningful.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
But at any rate, some of the most worthwhile moment are painful to the point of being unbearable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I categorize something that is "worthwhile" as an inherently positive thing. If something is worthwhile, it means the good outweighs the bad. If something was painful along the way, but ultimately worthwhile, I don't see how this could possibly increase the equity of suicide. It would be a good thing. (The only argument I can see is that your time preference is so low that the pain along the way would mean that you would have been better off dead, but in that case, the end result would by definition not be "worthwhile." Let's keep the argument clear.)

This is growing extremely semantical, and I think I've stated my point. I will respectfully withdraw myself for now.

[madnak]

"Positive" and "happy" mean two very different things. Something can be worthwhile without resulting in any happiness. See the beginning of this thread. But if happiness is the only thing in your life that is worthwhile to you, that's fine.

[Propertarian]

I don't have a link to the study, it was done by University of Wisc neuroscientist, and is cited and described in "Happiness" by Layard.

Your argument is in fact a non sequitur in that post. The reason is that humans may be very poor at pursuing happiness.

It's the old "rationality" problem in mainstream economics; the model assumes people pursue their own utility, but it can actually only make the deductions and such that it does if people are rational and have perfect info.

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have to also consider future potential to be happy in the future. Even if I'm down and out, maybe I can win the lottery. Maybe I'll meet the girl or the guy of my dreams and everything will be great again. Having a really good life is way better than being dead, while having a really bad life (I'm guessing) is still sort of fulfilling, and not that much worse than being dead. So in other words, you have really good implied odds when you choose to stay alive (even if you're a good bet to be "unhappy" more often than "happy").

[/ QUOTE ]

And maybe you'll end up kidnapped and tortured for months on end.

People are so blind and hypocritical about happiness and suffering. Maybe it's just a symptom of our culture, in which so few people ever experience any significant external suffering. If I remember, when the situation was reversed everyone had a very different opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd rather experience the worst pain and suffering possible for the rest of my life than die. Anything is better than nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please tell me this is a joke. You would rather get tortured everyday for the rest of your life then die? This is probably the most illogical statement I have heard in awhile. Death has 0 EV. Pain and suffering have negative EV.

Awesome.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
This is probably the most illogical statement I have heard in awhile. Death has 0 EV. Pain and suffering have negative EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

It has -EV *to you*. Maybe he is masochistic. If we can assume pain and suffering is "bad," even then maybe he has enough of a wired appreciation for being alive that the pain does not outweigh the innate "good." His statement was not illogical in the least.