steven0461 comments on Kinnaird's truels - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Johnicholas 05 March 2009 04:50PM

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Comment author: steven0461 05 March 2009 06:27:55PM 1 point [-]

But is "winning" like gaining skill at shooting people, or skill at not getting shot, or skill at helping people shoot other people, or skill at helping people not get shot by other people? It seems to me that the game-theoretic effects here are all over the place, and for every truel there is an anti-truel.

Comment author: Johnicholas 05 March 2009 06:42:20PM 0 points [-]

Maybe I can be more clear. There are two levels to the truel: gunmanship, and survival. Short-sighted winning at gunmanship leads to low probability of winning at survival.

The nonintuitive nature of the solution is the evidence that there's something to learn here, to refine your intuition.

Comment author: steven0461 05 March 2009 06:52:27PM *  0 points [-]

I'm saying that "winning" at goals in real life rarely translates to purely offensive/destructive power, which is what the truels assume.

As for nonintuitiveness, at least part of it comes from the assumption that skill is fully visible.