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Vaniver comments on Rationality Quotes May 2013 - Less Wrong
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Well... not quite. The selection effect makes the survival number basically impossible to calculate, but regularly surviving risky scenarios seems like it would provide a bit better odds for the influence of moxie than 249:200.
Fun Bayes application: what's the likelihood ratio for the existence vs. nonexistence of moxie-based immunity to death during battle for military leaders, given the military history of Earth?
At some point, if the Vulcan is smart enough, I suspect the calculation would begin to hinge more on plot twists and the odds that the story is nearing its end, as the hypothesis that they are wearing Plot Armor rises up to the forefront.
I'd also suspect that the Vulcan would realize quickly that as his prediction for the probability of success approaches 1, the odds of a sudden plot reversal that plunges them all in deep poo also approaches 1. And then the Vulcan would immediately adjust to always spouting off some random high-odds-against-us number all the time just to make sure they'd always succeed heroically.
Ow, this is starting to sound very newcomblike.
Holy crap, canon!Spock is a genius rationalist after all.
The C3PO of rationalists.
(At least when in a fight, the bridge crew always takes great care to ask for damage reports, and whether someone anywhere on the ship broke a finger, before, you know, firing back.)
Hey, the humans have to do something while the computer (which somehow hasn't obtained sentience) does all the real work.
The computer is secretly making paper clips in cargo bay 2, beaming them into space when noone is looking.
I want to believe.
The last line of reasoning doesn't quite work. Not every incident has an episode made out of it.
I don't see why not. Clearly, they're even more immune to death, dismemberment and other Bad Endings when they're not in a running episode. Or they just never run into the kind of exciting situations that happen during episodes.
I also suspect that distinguishing whether an episode is running would be even easier. One dead-obvious clue: The captain insists on going on an away mission, RedShirts are sent with him, all the RedShirts die unless they're part of the primary rotation bridge crew. Instant signal that an episode is running. AFAICT, very few redshirts ever die in this manner outside of episode incidents.
I was referring to the chances that something would go wrong when it looks nearly certain to succeed. Things can go blissfully smoothly when the camera isn't running.
This discussion seems like it needs a reference to Redshirts by John Scalzi.
Yes.
Hell yes it did.
*adds to want-to-read list*
They do very many things that have a near-1 probability of succeeding, and only few of them are thwarted by plot.
How do we know that it still works even when the Vulcan doesn't believe what they're saying?
If it doesn't, presumably the Vulcan should then immediately adjust to believing the high-odds-against-us number. (This would admittedly be much more difficult to pull off consistently.)
Maybe Vulcans are physiologically incapable of believing anything with insufficient evidence.
I read that charitably as indicating occasional failures in non-deadly situations. Not even Captain Kirk wins 'em all.