5 ms·

These sorts of problems assume that actions have no consequences beyond the immediate decision. These tests, run in places which have higher long-term expectati

by eesmith 5mo ago

These sorts of problems assume that actions have no consequences beyond the immediate decision. These tests, run in places which have higher long-term expectation of social connections, give different results than in the US. In the world where <50% press blue, you know that everyone alive (the red pushers) would save themselves rather than take a risk helping you or those who aren't clever at game theory problems. I don't want to live in that world, so blue for me. And it's the fault of everyone who pressed red should I die.

rayiner 5mo ago
That knowledge isn't a "consequence" of the game. It's a symptom of a fact that's knowable a priori. Running the game doesn't make it true; running the game merely reveals something that was already true.
bennettnate5 5mo ago
This doesn't seem to be a game that tries to be particularly clever--one button could kill you, the other certainly won't. Trusting that nearly everyone will avoid pressing the button that could kill them seems a reasonable assumption, and it's not necessarily an indication of a lack of altruism.
- empthought 5mo ago
  One button could kill you — if and only if enough people press the other button. The other button certainly won’t kill you, but will kill everyone who pressed the first button — if and only if enough people besides you press it.
- eesmith 5mo ago
  One button means you almost certainly contributed to homicide, since the odds of everyone pressing red is essentially 0%. The other one does not contribute to homicide. The right answer, by the way, is to not press either button. "The only winning move is not to play."
  - bennettnate5 5mo ago
    Let me frame it another way and see if you still consider it homicide: There's a cruise ship that needs to have a certain weight in order to not capsize. That weight threshold happens to be at 50% of the population (for whatever population we're considering in the original question). If the ship capsizes, everyone on it dies. You're given the option: either get on the cruise ship or don't. Not to take an actual cruise, not for some other intrinsic prize, just file on it for a minute and then get off. I don't see how those who refuse the risk of dying on the ship are complicit in the deaths of those who willingly choose to hop on it knowing the risks involved
    - empthought 5mo ago
      You don’t get to reframe the problem with different wording or circumstances to demonstrate your intelligence to others before they choose and you choose. That’s part of the thought experiment.
    - eesmith 5mo ago
      I have no idea what that scenario means. How does the buoyancy work? How did it not capsize when there was no one on it? You're loading people above the waterline, to be on/off in a minute, so that makes it more likely to capsize, not less. How come the people off the ship can't help the people in the water? And so on, and so on. If a rigid airship is being blown about, and might be unmoored, a trained ground crew will jump on the lines because with enough weight they can save the ship and its crew. If too few grab a line, it will unmoor. If you are on the ground crew, and you let go of the line because you are worried about your own life, are you complicit in the deaths caused by the ensuing airship crash?
  - zahlman 5mo ago
    "Homicide" requires direct causation. The entire concept of "contributed to homicide" is incoherent.
zahlman 5mo ago
> In the world where <50% press blue, you know that everyone alive (the red pushers) would save themselves rather than take a risk helping you or those who aren't clever at game theory problems. Well, no; in this world you pressed red too. Therefore, what you "know" is that nobody alive would be so foolish as to risk their own life for a mere chance at saving you when you're suicidal, given no clear incentive and no consequences for staying alive beyond... what they've already chosen. For that matter, one can argue that only in the world where blues get the slimmest possible 50%+1 majority can anyone feel like a "hero". Whenever the blue majority is greater than that, any individual blue can say "okay, but I could have pushed red and the result would have been the same".
- eesmith 5mo ago
  And what's your point? That I don't realize that a bunch of assholes who don't care about the people who aren't clever enough to figure out Prisoner Dilemma style puzzzles have no problem knowing the rest of the world are assholes just like them? And that the only opposite to "asshole" is "hero"? Do you also think that any male opposed to sexism is a white knight expecting to get sex out of it? And that anyone who doesn't agree with your logic is being politically correct?
  - zahlman 5mo ago
    >And what's your point? My point is what I said, no more, no less. > That I don't realize that a bunch of assholes who don't care about the people who aren't clever enough to figure out Prisoner Dilemma style puzzzles have no problem knowing the rest of the world are assholes just like them? And that the only opposite to "asshole" is "hero"? None of this even vaguely resembles what I wrote, nor any reasonable conclusion therefrom. Also, this is not a "prisoner dilemma style puzzle". The game theory involved isn't remotely as interesting; we're only talking about it because people impute moral consequences to the choice. > Do you also think that any male opposed to sexism is a white knight expecting to get sex out of it? And that anyone who doesn't agree with your logic is being politically correct? ... I legitimately have no idea how it even occurred to you to ask these questions, especially on a site like Hacker News, and am not interested in attempting to answer them. I will say, however, that "opposed to sexism" objectively does not mean the same thing as "feminist"; because my only vague remote wild guesses as to how you could come up with these questions, entail falsely believing in such an equivalence. I hope I could educate you today.

by eesmith 5mo ago

rayiner 5mo ago

That knowledge isn't a "consequence" of the game. It's a symptom of a fact that's knowable a priori. Running the game doesn't make it true; running the game merely reveals something that was already true.

bennettnate5 5mo ago

This doesn't seem to be a game that tries to be particularly clever--one button could kill you, the other certainly won't. Trusting that nearly everyone will avoid pressing the button that could kill them seems a reasonable assumption, and it's not necessarily an indication of a lack of altruism.

empthought 5mo ago
One button could kill you — if and only if enough people press the other button. The other button certainly won’t kill you, but will kill everyone who pressed the first button — if and only if enough people besides you press it.
eesmith 5mo ago
One button means you almost certainly contributed to homicide, since the odds of everyone pressing red is essentially 0%. The other one does not contribute to homicide. The right answer, by the way, is to not press either button. "The only winning move is not to play."
- bennettnate5 5mo ago
  Let me frame it another way and see if you still consider it homicide: There's a cruise ship that needs to have a certain weight in order to not capsize. That weight threshold happens to be at 50% of the population (for whatever population we're considering in the original question). If the ship capsizes, everyone on it dies. You're given the option: either get on the cruise ship or don't. Not to take an actual cruise, not for some other intrinsic prize, just file on it for a minute and then get off. I don't see how those who refuse the risk of dying on the ship are complicit in the deaths of those who willingly choose to hop on it knowing the risks involved
  - empthought 5mo ago
    You don’t get to reframe the problem with different wording or circumstances to demonstrate your intelligence to others before they choose and you choose. That’s part of the thought experiment.
  - eesmith 5mo ago
    I have no idea what that scenario means. How does the buoyancy work? How did it not capsize when there was no one on it? You're loading people above the waterline, to be on/off in a minute, so that makes it more likely to capsize, not less. How come the people off the ship can't help the people in the water? And so on, and so on. If a rigid airship is being blown about, and might be unmoored, a trained ground crew will jump on the lines because with enough weight they can save the ship and its crew. If too few grab a line, it will unmoor. If you are on the ground crew, and you let go of the line because you are worried about your own life, are you complicit in the deaths caused by the ensuing airship crash?
- zahlman 5mo ago
  "Homicide" requires direct causation. The entire concept of "contributed to homicide" is incoherent.

zahlman 5mo ago

> In the world where <50% press blue, you know that everyone alive (the red pushers) would save themselves rather than take a risk helping you or those who aren't clever at game theory problems. Well, no; in this world you pressed red too. Therefore, what you "know" is that nobody alive would be so foolish as to risk their own life for a mere chance at saving you when you're suicidal, given no clear incentive and no consequences for staying alive beyond... what they've already chosen. For that matter, one can argue that only in the world where blues get the slimmest possible 50%+1 majority can anyone feel like a "hero". Whenever the blue majority is greater than that, any individual blue can say "okay, but I could have pushed red and the result would have been the same".

eesmith 5mo ago
And what's your point? That I don't realize that a bunch of assholes who don't care about the people who aren't clever enough to figure out Prisoner Dilemma style puzzzles have no problem knowing the rest of the world are assholes just like them? And that the only opposite to "asshole" is "hero"? Do you also think that any male opposed to sexism is a white knight expecting to get sex out of it? And that anyone who doesn't agree with your logic is being politically correct?
- zahlman 5mo ago
  >And what's your point? My point is what I said, no more, no less. > That I don't realize that a bunch of assholes who don't care about the people who aren't clever enough to figure out Prisoner Dilemma style puzzzles have no problem knowing the rest of the world are assholes just like them? And that the only opposite to "asshole" is "hero"? None of this even vaguely resembles what I wrote, nor any reasonable conclusion therefrom. Also, this is not a "prisoner dilemma style puzzle". The game theory involved isn't remotely as interesting; we're only talking about it because people impute moral consequences to the choice. > Do you also think that any male opposed to sexism is a white knight expecting to get sex out of it? And that anyone who doesn't agree with your logic is being politically correct? ... I legitimately have no idea how it even occurred to you to ask these questions, especially on a site like Hacker News, and am not interested in attempting to answer them. I will say, however, that "opposed to sexism" objectively does not mean the same thing as "feminist"; because my only vague remote wild guesses as to how you could come up with these questions, entail falsely believing in such an equivalence. I hope I could educate you today.