(See how pointless it is to just broadcast poorly-explained and poorly-understood ideas?)
It actually kinda worked, the confusion I had was really simple and was mostly resolved by User:paulfchristiano saying "I see no problems with that".
how do you let a piece of paper with "Defect" written on it control your decision?
That's a good way of phrasing it, thanks.
it's these (potentially more powerful) explanations that play the game with stronger opponents in your stead
Again, a good way of phrasing it, thanks.
Responding to this: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8ys/a_way_of_specifying_utility_functions_for_udt/
I had a similar idea a few months ago that highlights different aspects of the problem which I find confusing. In my version the UDT agent controls bits of Chaitin's constant instead of the universal prior directly, seeing as one of the programs that the oracle (which you can derive from Chaitin's omega) has to solve the halting problem for is the UDT agent's. But since the oracle for the oracle you get from Chaitin's constant depends on the latter oracle's bits, you seem to be able to ambiently control THE ENTIRE ARITHMETICAL HIERARCHY SAY WHAT!? That's the confusing part; isn't your one true oracle supposed to screen you off from higher oracles? Or is that only insofar as you can computably verify?
Anyway I like this theme of controlling computational contexts as it forms a tight loop between agent and environment, something currently lacking. Keep it up comrades!