Eugine_Nier comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Multiheaded 25 January 2012 05:43PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 07 February 2012 02:15:15PM 0 points [-]

That doesn't sound plausible to me, but if you're right, the right thing to do would be letting as many people as possible know about the issue, so that it's more likely to be averted.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 09 February 2012 12:59:56AM 2 points [-]

The way it works is: if people are keeping the basilisk a secret for the sake of protecting others (even if it increases their own punishment), that means that those people value protecting others over their own safety. Therefore, a more effective way to punish them, is to torture those they're trying to protect.

Comment author: [deleted] 09 February 2012 01:34:39AM 3 points [-]

Are you sure you don't want to at the very least rot-13 that? Some people here have explicitly said they'd rather not find out what the basilisk is.

Comment author: private_messaging 02 June 2012 05:08:36PM *  0 points [-]

In Newcomb's a good agent will 1-box in emulator and 2-box in reality if it could tell apart sim and reality. Even a tiniest flaw in the emulation results in lack of incentive for following through with the basilisk threat. You need a very dumb decision theory for the agent to just torture people for no gain.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 03 June 2012 12:27:02AM 3 points [-]

Yes, and in that case the basilisk isn't a problem at all. My point is that under any decision-theoretic assumptions Eliezer's strategy of secrecy doesn't help.

Comment author: private_messaging 03 June 2012 06:32:33AM *  0 points [-]

Well, yea. The whole thing is just stupid, how-ever you look at it.