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evand comments on [Link] RSA Animate: extremely entertaining LW-relevant cartoons - Less Wrong
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Pardon my ignorance in asking this stupid question:
Isn't the mainstream position among decision theorists that defect is the optimal strategy in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game? Sure, we can say something like "a TDT-agent will cooperate with another TDT-agent." But even a TDT-agent will defect if it doesn't know the identity of the counter-party. And TDT isn't completely formalized yet, right?
In short, I'm not sure of the value of snarking a popularizer of decision theory for using the word "rationality" differently than this community uses the word, particularly when our usage is (unfortunately) not the consensus definition in the relevant field.
Depending on the payoff scale, a TDT agent will cooperate if it believes that the other agent has some (high enough) chance of being a TDT agent. In other words, raise the sanity waterline high enough, and TDT cooperates.
TDT / superrationality will defect probabilistically given a high enough payoff for defection, even against a known-TDT agent.
In short: TDT and superrationality theories aren't as simple as some here make them out to be, and the one-shot prisoner's dilemma has hidden depths for smart players.
He also has to believe that the other agent believes with sufficient confidence that he is a suitable kind of agent. Same population makeup considerations apply.
Of course, the rational thing to do is to convince everyone ELSE to be "superrational", and convince them that you are ALSO "superrational", and then defect if you actually play a prisoner's dilemma for sufficiently high stakes.
Eliezer has done a good job of this. Hofstadter too. Inventing the term "superrationality" for "magicalthinking" was a good move.