Strange7 comments on Eight Short Studies On Excuses - Less Wrong

210 Post author: Yvain 20 April 2010 11:01PM

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Comment author: Strange7 21 April 2010 11:06:28PM *  9 points [-]

Do the rescued children have parents? Would said parents be willing to pool their resources and pay a hostage-rescuer at least $100 plus expenses, in order to encourage proactive rescuing of children in the future? Situations like this come up in Hayate no Gotoku on a weekly basis.

Comment author: SilasBarta 21 April 2010 11:10:56PM 1 point [-]

Yes they would, but the Parfit's Hitchhiker problem is supposed to handle solutions for the purely one-shot case. Obviously, if you take a broad persepective, beyond the local problem, and think about the consequences of stiffing desert rescuers that ask for a reasonable fee, then of course you're going to find bad future consequences.

But you don't need TDT to justify paying in that case, just any other theory that is allowed to appeal to future consequences of the "message it sends".