Alicorn comments on Exterminating life is rational - Less Wrong

17 Post author: PhilGoetz 06 August 2009 04:17PM

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Comment author: Alicorn 11 August 2009 07:09:42PM *  -1 points [-]

While I'm gaming the system, my lifetime utility function (if I have one) could probably be doubled by giving me a reasonable suite of superpowers, some of which would let me identify the rest of the cards in the deck (X-ray vision, precog powers, etc.) or be protected from whatever mechanism the skull cards use to kill me (immunity to electricity or just straight-up invulnerability). Is it a stipulation of the scenario that nothing Omega does to tweak the utility function upon drawing a star affects the risks of drawing from the deck, directly or indirectly?

Comment author: orthonormal 11 August 2009 07:23:26PM 2 points [-]

It should be, especially since the existential-risk problems that we're trying to model aren't known to come with superpowers or other such escape hatches.