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Robin Hanson's avatar

See the "added" above.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I conclude Bunzi cares mainly about changing the rest of us, but was unwilling to admit this directly. Why, I wonder?

Because he gets a, to use the vernacular, metric assload more disutility from everyone else using a Hummer (and hence dumping greenhouse gases, creating road hazards, raising oil prices, etc.) than he does from using it himself?

I mean, come on. The climate change issue is a massive honking collective action problem. It might not be individually irrational for him to own a Hummer, but it sure is collectively irrational for everyone who can afford one to have one. Isn't solving collective action problems what the state is for? (Even Milton Friedman could have agreed with that.)

Admittedly, Bunzl expressed this very badly, and the issue of hyperbolic discounting seems like a red herring here. Who cares whether it's individually rational or not to buy the less energy-efficient washing machine? I mean, really, who cares? At all? The point is the collective problem.

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