Peter_de_Blanc comments on You have just been Counterfactually Mugged! - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (22)
I will if Michael Vassar judges that any reputational damage from the comment has an expected value less than $14.
You did it wrong on two counts: First, you need to ask me to pay you money, so the two utilities are easily commensurable and there's no question of interpreting the results. Second, repeating the Counterfactual Mugging more than once tends to obscure the point, especially given the implication that you had a stopping algorithm rather than a fixed number of iterations. Of course it is now too late to do it over again correctly.
But with a trusted witness of the original die roll, or say paying $20 if the 100th decimal digit of pi (unknown to me currently) is 0, and otherwise demanding $1, we could totally mug, say, Derek Parfit and see what happens. Actually, I think I'll forward this suggestion to Anders Sandberg and see what happens if he mugs Nick Bostrom. No one tell Bostrom before then, please.
I will if Michael Vassar judges that any reputational damage from the comment has an expected value less than $14.
Don't you mean $10?
2/3 of $20? Should be "less than $13", actually.
Before the die roll, there's a 1/3 chance that you'll get the reward ($20), and a 2/3 chance that you'll be asked to pay the penalty. For the expected utility to be 0, (2/3)*|penalty| = (1/3)*$20. Multiply both sides by 3, and 2*|penalty| = $20, so |penalty| = $10.
How's that for minor reputational damage?
Crap. Never mind. You know, this happens when I'm sufficiently tired, and it's scary. I am a poopy head.
I'll take that as a successful mugging. ;)