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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30623 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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  1. Different framings mean different things. Change the framing and the correct answer may change.

  2. Defection has the obvious negative utility of killing those who cooperate. There will always be some who cooperate, so defection not only has possible negative utility, it has guaranteed negative utility.

There is no defect here. Classically, defect means there is a lower aggregate payout whereas cooperation means there is a large payout. Here, if everyone defects you get the same payout suggesting defect isnt really defect.

Instead the question here is what option creates the highest EV. I suspect it is red.

Yeah, picking blue just straight up burns value. Those who pick it should be ashamed of themselves for putting themselves in a situation where they need to be "rescued" by lots of other people also voting blue. All this could have been avoided had they just voted red.

if everyone defects

How many times do I have to say this? It's guaranteed that not everyone will defect if the poll is large enough. So at best you should talk about "50% of people cooperating, saving everyone" vs "almost 100% of people defecting, saving almost everyone." Realistically, the best-case red scenario is much worse than the best-case blue scenario.

Instead the question here is what option creates the highest EV.

Sure.

And my guess is that something like 97%-99% of an adult population actually faced with this absurd decision would pick red and therefore it is EV negative to pick blue.

You say this as if it somehow contradicts anything I've said.

Defection has the obvious negative utility of killing those who cooperate. There will always be some who cooperate, so defection not only has possible negative utility, it has guaranteed negative utility.

This assumes that the lives of cooperate-bots have positive utility, which I do not grant.

Different framings mean different things. Change the framing and the correct answer may change.

Yeah this is why I hate these thought experiments.

This assumes that the lives of cooperate-bots have positive utility, which I do not grant.

It assumes only that at least one such person has positive utility, or that someone with positive utility mistakenly chose blue (perhaps because they were very young, very sleep-deprived, temporarily suicidal, etc.). Seems like an extremely safe assumption to me.

Let's remove the ambiguity and say that there was a mishap at the pill factory and one of the pairs is just two blue ones.

Is it still a good idea to risk loads of people to save just one? If you change the problem that way it just becomes a bet on how high trust society is essentially.

But despite everyone seemingly wanting to jump to children and the mentally ill to justify stupid decisions, I still think the original formulation assumes someone making a conscious decision.

Is it still a good idea to risk loads of people to save just one?

Many religious people, moral extremists of many types, the very elderly, and others will all choose blue to save one, yes. So now we iterate once, is it a good idea for the somewhat less moral people to choose blue to save the more moral people? I'd say so, and I'd say those two groups account for at least half already.

Now you're the one assuming your conclusion.

I don't believe those people to be more moral. I think the opposite actually.

But let's follow this thought. Okay you may be fine if you iterate once. What if you iterate forever? How long until the high trust society eventually collapses because people figure out they can avoid the risk entirely by shirking the norm? And once they do will you still be able to argue that the house of cards was moral?

Now you're the one assuming your conclusion.

How so? My only assumption is that some people will choose blue to try to save a single life. This is obviously a safe assumption.

I don't believe those people to be more moral. I think the opposite actually.

OK, just substitute "moral" in my comment for "@Meriadoc's idea of moral" and it remains just as valid so long as you care about human life at all. My point is not to argue that such people are actually moral. I believe they are, but that's not what this thought experiment is about anyways. The point is that even if the premise says only 1 person will definitely choose blue, I know for a fact that more will.

What if you iterate forever? How long until the high trust society eventually collapses because people figure out they can avoid the risk entirely by shirking the norm?

This isn't iteration at all, this is just "when people think more about the question they'll come around to my point of view." I disagree.

And once they do will you still be able to argue that the house of cards was moral?

As I've said before, my answer would change if I thought blue wasn't attainable.

This isn't iteration at all, this is just "when people think more about the question they'll come around to my point of view." I disagree.

This game only has two equilibriums: everyone takes blue or everyone takes red.

Are you really going to argue that the iterated dynamics make it tend towards blue? I just don't see how when it's just like the prisoner's dilemma except with no personal upside to cooperation .

You're essentially asking for people to do something that is in the group interest but against their personal interest. I don't give this social experiment more than 70 years.

I just don't see how when it's just like the prisoner's dilemma except with no personal upside to cooperation

There's no personal upside to defection either, assuming enough people cooperate. So yes, red is probably more stable, but blue is plenty stable so long as that's where things start.

This game only has two equilibriums: everyone takes blue or everyone takes red.

You mean >50% of people take blue or everyone takes red.

You're essentially asking for people to do something that is in the group interest but against their personal interest.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily against personal interest, unless by "personal" you mean "interest in their own life." Iteration means you can figure out that your grandma or disabled cousin will pick blue. Maybe it's in your personal interest to keep them alive even if you risk your own life to do so.

More comments

You mean continue pondering, ie after having realized that the dumb might vote blue, you realize that moral extreme save-everyone nice grandmas will also realize this and vote blue, which means all those who want to save nice grandma's will also vote blue. So maybe you don't think nice naive grandma's are worth saving, but even so, perhaps people who want to save nice grandmas are worth saving. This is your idea of iteration.

What I mean is, take a simple set of rules and iterate over them a few times. For example:

  1. Some amount of people are willing to risk death to save people who they think will choose blue

  2. They choose blue. The number of people who choose blue according to this thought process grows.

  3. Repeat.

One iteration would be running through that process once.

The other person meant iteration as in "iterated prisoners dilemma", ie repeat this poll again and again.

The iterated prisoner's dilemma is all part of one game. Repeating the poll again and again would not be the iterated prisoner's dilemma because the result of one poll would not affect the next at all--it would be part of a different game. If your overall survival depended on the cumulative result of all the polls, then that would be closer to actual iteration.

Besides that, I don't think they actually meant "repeat this poll again and again." What they said was:

But let's follow this thought. Okay you may be fine if you iterate once. What if you iterate forever?

This clearly implies that they're using it the same way I am, and I obviously didn't mean "repeat this poll" so I don't think that's how they meant it either.

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