Eugine_Nier comments on Does My Vote Matter? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: orthonormal 05 November 2012 01:23AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 05 November 2012 03:36:24AM *  10 points [-]

If I'd been composing this for the Less Wrong crowd, I'd have also noted that the decisions of people similar to you should be correlated, which adds another multiplier to the effectiveness of voting. I might like I bumper sticker that says "I'm a timeless decision theorist, therefore I vote!")

I want one that says "I know as many Timeless Decision Theorists who would vote for the other guy as for my guy, therefore none of us vote even though voting would cause our preferences to be maximised!"

ie. "Timeless" considerations go both ways here (and elsewhere), not just towards the option that we incidentally associate with 'virtue'.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 05 November 2012 03:40:30AM 1 point [-]

I want one that says "I know as many Timeless Decision Theorists who would vote for the other guy as for my guy, therefore none of us vote even though voting would cause our preferences to be maximised!"

But do each of those Timeless Decision Theorists know precisely the same set of Timeless Decision Theorists as you do?

Comment author: wedrifid 05 November 2012 03:47:39AM *  -1 points [-]

But do each of those Timeless Decision Theorists know precisely the same set of Timeless Decision Theorists as you do?

They don't need to. I just need to expect the political biases of the TDTists the others know to be just as likely to in one direction as the other.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 05 November 2012 03:56:17AM 0 points [-]

Um, no. Since one of the TDTists is yourself, and you already know your set of acquaintances.

Comment author: wedrifid 05 November 2012 06:34:34AM *  0 points [-]

Um, no. Since one of the TDTists is yourself, and you already know your set of acquaintances.

The grandparent seems correct and I don't see why "Um, no" is supposed to follow from the parent. It is possible that the amount of communication required to reach an agreement with Eugine would be too much to fit even on my rather verbose bumper sticker.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 November 2012 01:01:25AM 0 points [-]

The grandparent seems correct and I don't see why "Um, no" is supposed to follow from the parent.

It might be easier to see if you think of the case when you know only one other TDTist and he would vote for the other guy. However, you're not sure how many other TDTists he knows.

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