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jimrandomh comments on Unpacking the Concept of "Blackmail" - Less Wrong
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One is a case where a precommitment makes a difference, the other isn't.
Had you convincingly precommitted not to giving in to blackmail* you would not have been blackmailed.
Had you convincingly precommitted to getting the FSM to grant your blackmailer $1000, the FSM still wouldn't exist.
*(which is not an impossible counterfactual+ it's something that could have happened, with only relatively minor changes to the world.)
+[unless you want to define "impossible" such that anything which doesn't happen was impossible, at which point it's not an unpossible counterfactual, and I'm annoyed :p]
A logically impossible situation is one which couldn't happen in any logically consistent world. There are plenty of logically consistent worlds in which the person blackmailing you instead doesn't.
So, it's definitely not logically impossible. You could call it impossible (though, as above, that non-standard usage would irritate me) but it's not logically impossible.
Couldn't you also convincingly precommit to accept the corresponding positive-sum trade?
Yes. But why would you need to? In the positive-sum trade scenario, you're gaining from the trade, so precommitting to accept it is unnecessary.
If you mean that I could precommit to only accept extremely favourable terms; well if I do that, they'll choose someone else to trade with; just as the threatener would choose someone else to threaten
Them choosing to trade with someone else is bad for me. The threatener choosing someone else to threaten is good for me.
/\ That is, in many ways, the most important distinction between the scenarios. I want the threatener to pick someone else. I want the trader to pick me.