DanielVarga comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Unnamed 27 May 2010 12:10AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 30 July 2010 03:17:07PM *  6 points [-]

Assume that Draco and Harry both value victory at $1000. Now if you demand $800 from the winner, the loser "would have" gained only $200 in the counterfactual case, so he will pay you $200 at most. So you could have just demanded $1000 minus epsilon from the winner. We could probably prove a theorem that says counterfactual mugging can't help you extract more of the surplus economic value that you create.

Comment author: dclayh 30 July 2010 10:19:59PM *  1 point [-]

Excellent point! This is what I get for posting in haste.

ETA: However you can extract more than $1000 if you assume that at least one of Harry and Draco would rather the other of them win than Hermione. No counterfactuals needed.