Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Bayesians vs. Barbarians - Less Wrong
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That isn't an assumption Eliezer is making, it's an assumption he's attacking.
It doesn't look like it:
Eliezer is analyzing the situation as a Prisoner's Dilemma: different players have different utility functions. This analysis would be completely redundant in a society where everyone have the same utility function (or at least sufficiently similar / non-egocentric utility functions). In such a society there wouldn't be a need for a lottery: the soldiers would be those most skilled for the job. There would be no need for drugs / shooting deserters: the soldiers would want to fight because the choice to fight would be associated with positive expected utility (even if it means high likelihood of death).