TheOtherDave comments on On accepting an argument if you have limited computational power. - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Dmytry 11 January 2012 05:07PM

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Comment author: khafra 12 January 2012 01:59:44PM *  3 points [-]

The point of Pascal's Mugging dealing with a tiny probability of a really big harm vs. a high probability of a very small harm. If your mugger makes testable predictions about his power to carry out the really big harm, that turns the tiny probability into a reasonably large probability, and makes it a non-Pascalian hostage situation.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 12 January 2012 05:32:50PM 0 points [-]

Conversely, the inability of a putative Pascal's Mugger to make such predictions ought to apply a significant penalty to the plausibility of its claim. And simply increasing the threatened disutility won't necessarily help, since the more powerful the entity claims to be, the greater should be the implausibility of its inability to make testable predictions.