Utilitarianism for Engineers

An exploratory essay on practically measuring utility: praises QALYs as a useful 'halfway between theory and practice' hack (with a real colon-cancer cost-effectiveness example), then brainstorms a general utility metric - VNM probability tradeoffs, a basket of five disparate goods, QALY/pain/money anchors - and catalogs why each fails. Self-aware and inconclusive ('hand-wavy pseudotheory') but idea-rich; a clear precursor to his later EA / cost-effectiveness writing.

Quality 67 · Strong. Strong: a substantive, original exploration of a genuinely hard problem, with characteristic humor and honesty about its limits - held back by being deliberately inconclusive. ~67.

Claude’s paradigm shift 52 · Moderate. Builds on QALYs/VNM, but the push toward a general legible utility metric for policy is a fresh framing. ~52.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. An early, idea-rich exploration of measuring utility (QALYs, cost-effectiveness) and a clear precursor to his EA/cost-effectiveness writing; tied to a consequential EA topic with downstream intellectual reach, though the post itself is exploratory → RWI 3.