3 ms·

Have you been to the maldives? I live in a particularly beautiful part of the US (Sarasota, FL) and I can say without question that moving to the Maldives would

Have you been to the maldives? I live in a particularly beautiful part of the US (Sarasota, FL) and I can say without question that moving to the Maldives would increase my standard of living. You're right that it would increase their incomes. But standard of living is much more than income...

gwern 17y ago
If that is true, why not move there? Or are you a masochist?
- ori_b 17y ago
  Activation barriers. Cutting ties to where you currently are may be sufficiently painful that moving isn't worth it, even if the end result is an increased standard of living.
  - gwern 17y ago
    If one has offspring, and they have offspring and so on, the gain from moving is indefinitely large and overwhelms any activation barrier. This suggests a new alternative: the poster is either barren or doesn't care about the standard of living of his offspring.
    - philwelch 17y ago
      You left out a few possibilities: -The poster hadn't considered that argument -The poster doesn't want to have kids -The poster will have a finite number of descendants -The poster's concern for the standard of living of his distant descendants diminish according to distance (for instance, he probably cares a great deal for his children and a similar amount for his grandchildren, but by the time you're talking great-great-grandchildren his empathy has diminished significantly) -The poster's descendants will not want share his fondness for the Maldives -The poster's descendants will move away from the Maldives for other reasons I'm sure you can think of a half dozen other alternatives if you think for a minute.
      - gwern 17y ago
        1. If the poster can consider 'activation costs', he most certainly can consider the benefits for his kids. Billions of people have radically altered their lives for the benefit of their kids, it's not some remarkably difficult task. 2. Same as barren. 3. Impossible to know, and under any plausible reckoning of improvement, insufficient to make activation costs predominate. 4. Same as doesn't care. 5. Unlikely; goes against millennia of empirical evidence that people love where they live (nowadays we call that 'patriotism') 6. A fully general counterargument (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fully_general_counterargument http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fully_general_counterargument). You can use that to argue against anything: 'You should move away from North Korea', 'Why, my descendants might move away into it for other reasons!'; 'You shouldn't move away from North Korea, then', 'Why, my descendants might then move away elsewhere for other reasons!'
        ori_b 17y ago
        > If the poster can consider 'activation costs' What makes you think people consciously consider it? Most of them just say "I don't feel like moving", or "I'm too lazy". Also, you missed the point of the "fully general counterargument". The point is that if your descendants find it better to be somewhere else later - well, they're fully capable of moving themselves.
        philwelch 17y ago
        3 (finite number of descendants): "Impossible to know" perhaps--but the possibility of having few or no descendants will factor into the expected value of "number of descendants resident in the Maldives". 5 (his children may not be fond of the Maldives): You just argued that children are likely to have a fondness for wherever they are born. If true, this invalidates the argument for moving at all: whether his descendants love the Maldives or America will make for no gain at all. 6. (children may move away from Maldives): Actually, given the limited economic and educational opportunities of the Maldives, there's likely to be a fairly high probability of one's children moving. Once we use this probability to work out an EV for "number of descendants resident in the Maldives", or even apply the probability recursively to work out a proportion of descendants resident in the Maldives over an infinite number of generations, your infinity argument is pretty well refuted.
    - igorhvr 17y ago
      You missed the possibility that moving there would increase his standard of living, but would not do the same for his kids. There could be no good college there, for instance - and if he already did college, this would not be a problem for him. But for his offspring, it could be a significant issue.

gwern 17y ago

If that is true, why not move there? Or are you a masochist?

ori_b 17y ago
Activation barriers. Cutting ties to where you currently are may be sufficiently painful that moving isn't worth it, even if the end result is an increased standard of living.
- gwern 17y ago
  If one has offspring, and they have offspring and so on, the gain from moving is indefinitely large and overwhelms any activation barrier. This suggests a new alternative: the poster is either barren or doesn't care about the standard of living of his offspring.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    You left out a few possibilities: -The poster hadn't considered that argument -The poster doesn't want to have kids -The poster will have a finite number of descendants -The poster's concern for the standard of living of his distant descendants diminish according to distance (for instance, he probably cares a great deal for his children and a similar amount for his grandchildren, but by the time you're talking great-great-grandchildren his empathy has diminished significantly) -The poster's descendants will not want share his fondness for the Maldives -The poster's descendants will move away from the Maldives for other reasons I'm sure you can think of a half dozen other alternatives if you think for a minute.
    - gwern 17y ago
      1. If the poster can consider 'activation costs', he most certainly can consider the benefits for his kids. Billions of people have radically altered their lives for the benefit of their kids, it's not some remarkably difficult task. 2. Same as barren. 3. Impossible to know, and under any plausible reckoning of improvement, insufficient to make activation costs predominate. 4. Same as doesn't care. 5. Unlikely; goes against millennia of empirical evidence that people love where they live (nowadays we call that 'patriotism') 6. A fully general counterargument (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fully_general_counterargument http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fully_general_counterargument). You can use that to argue against anything: 'You should move away from North Korea', 'Why, my descendants might move away into it for other reasons!'; 'You shouldn't move away from North Korea, then', 'Why, my descendants might then move away elsewhere for other reasons!'
      - ori_b 17y ago
        > If the poster can consider 'activation costs' What makes you think people consciously consider it? Most of them just say "I don't feel like moving", or "I'm too lazy". Also, you missed the point of the "fully general counterargument". The point is that if your descendants find it better to be somewhere else later - well, they're fully capable of moving themselves.
      - philwelch 17y ago
        3 (finite number of descendants): "Impossible to know" perhaps--but the possibility of having few or no descendants will factor into the expected value of "number of descendants resident in the Maldives". 5 (his children may not be fond of the Maldives): You just argued that children are likely to have a fondness for wherever they are born. If true, this invalidates the argument for moving at all: whether his descendants love the Maldives or America will make for no gain at all. 6. (children may move away from Maldives): Actually, given the limited economic and educational opportunities of the Maldives, there's likely to be a fairly high probability of one's children moving. Once we use this probability to work out an EV for "number of descendants resident in the Maldives", or even apply the probability recursively to work out a proportion of descendants resident in the Maldives over an infinite number of generations, your infinity argument is pretty well refuted.
  - igorhvr 17y ago
    You missed the possibility that moving there would increase his standard of living, but would not do the same for his kids. There could be no good college there, for instance - and if he already did college, this would not be a problem for him. But for his offspring, it could be a significant issue.