JGWeissman comments on Attention Lurkers: Please say hi - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Kevin 16 April 2010 08:46PM

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Comment author: JGWeissman 22 April 2010 09:22:41PM 2 points [-]

Would you perhaps write a short post about it? Thanks in advance.

From Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality:

First, foremost, fundamentally, above all else:

Rational agents should WIN.

Don't mistake me, and think that I'm talking about the Hollywood Rationality stereotype that rationalists should be selfish or shortsighted. If your utility function has a term in it for others, then win their happiness. If your utility function has a term in it for a million years hence, then win the eon.

But at any rate, WIN. Don't lose reasonably, WIN.

If it turns out that the techniques we advocate predictably lose, even though we thought they were reasonable, even though they came from our best mathematical investigation into what a rational agent should do, then we will conclude that those techniques are not actually rational, and we should figure out something else.