Extremely Counterfactual Mugging or: the gist of Transparent Newcomb

Bongo

Omega will either award you $1000 or ask you to pay him $100. He will award you $1000 if he predicts you would pay him if he asked. He will ask you to pay him $100 if he predicts you wouldn't pay him if he asked.

Omega asks you to pay him $100. Do you pay?

This problem is roughly isomorphic to the branch of Transparent Newcomb (version 1, version 2) where box B is empty, but it's simpler.

Here's a diagram:

Omega will either award you $1000 or ask you to pay him $100. He will award you $1000 if he predicts you would pay him if he asked. He will ask you to pay him $100 if he predicts you wouldn't pay him if he asked.

Omega asks you to pay him $100. Do you pay?

This problem is roughly isomorphic to the branch of Transparent Newcomb (version 1, version 2) where box B is empty, but it's simpler.

Here's a diagram:

Willingness to pay Omega depends on having arbitrarily high confidence in his predictions

No. Paying is the winning strategy in the version where the predictor is correct only with probability, say, 0.8, too. ie.

P(o=AWARD) = 0.8*P(a=PAY)+0.2*P(a=REFUSE)

(blink)

You're right; I'm wrong. Clearly I haven't actually been thinking carefully about the problem.

Thanks.