Give me $5 or I will torture 3^^^^3 sentient people across the omniverse for 1,000 years each and then kill them. using my undetectable magical powers. You can pay me by paypal to mwengler@gmail.com. Unless 20 people respond (or the integrated total I receive reaches $100) then I will carry out the torture.
Now you may think I am making the above statement to make a point. Indeed it seems probable, but what if I am not? How do you weigh the very finite probability that I mean it against 3^^^^3 sentient lives
I feel confident that the amount of money I recieve by paypal will be a more meaningful statement about what people really think of
(ininitesimal probability) * (nearly infinite evil) = well over $5 worth of utilons
Do others agree? Or do they think these comments which cost nothing bu another 15 minutes away from reading a different post are what really mean something?
The issue is how to program a decision theory (or meta-decision theory, perhaps) that doesn't fall victim to Pascal's mugging and similar scenarios, not to show that humans mostly don't fall victim to it.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.