DoubleReed comments on Pascal's Muggle: Infinitesimal Priors and Strong Evidence - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 May 2013 12:43AM

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Comment author: DoubleReed 07 May 2013 07:30:00PM 2 points [-]

I disagree. All the scam artist has to know is your method of coming to your conclusions. Once he knows that then he can probably exploit you depending on his cleverness (and then it becomes an arms race). If anything, trying to defend yourself from being manipulated in that way would probably be extremely difficult in of itself. Either way, my initial guess is that your methodology would still be superficial pattern-matching, but it would just be a deeper, more complex level of it.

This seems to be what Eliezer is doing with all the various scenarios. He's testing his methodology against different attacks and different scenarios. I'm just suggesting is to change your viewpoint to the Bad Guy. Rather than talk about your reliable reasoning, talk about the bad guy and how he can exploit your reasoning.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 07 May 2013 08:01:16PM 2 points [-]

my initial guess is that your methodology would still be superficial pattern-matching, but it would just be a deeper, more complex level of it.

Fair enough. If I accept that guess as true, I agree with your conclusion.

I also agree that adopting the enemy's perspective is an important -- for humans, indispensible -- part of strategic thinking.