[SEQ RERUN] Bayesians vs. Barbarians

MinibearRex

Today's post, Bayesians vs. Barbarians was originally published on 14 April 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Suppose that a country of rationalists is attacked by a country of Evil Barbarians who know nothing of probability theory or decision theory. There's a certain concept of "rationality" which says that the rationalists inevitably lose, because the Barbarians believe in a heavenly afterlife if they die in battle, while the rationalists would all individually prefer to stay out of harm's way. So the rationalist civilization is doomed; it is too elegant and civilized to fight the savage Barbarians... And then there's the idea that rationalists should be able to (a) solve group coordination problems, (b) care a lot about other people and (c) win...

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Collective Apathy and the Internet, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Bayesians vs. Barbarians was originally published on 14 April 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Suppose that a country of rationalists is attacked by a country of Evil Barbarians who know nothing of probability theory or decision theory. There's a certain concept of "rationality" which says that the rationalists inevitably lose, because the Barbarians believe in a heavenly afterlife if they die in battle, while the rationalists would all individually prefer to stay out of harm's way. So the rationalist civilization is doomed; it is too elegant and civilized to fight the savage Barbarians... And then there's the idea that rationalists should be able to (a) solve group coordination problems, (b) care a lot about other people and (c) win...

Every one of these complex problems and complex solutions fall away to an egoist. When rationalism is uncoupled from all who are not the rational agent, no paradox of self-preservation vs rationality endures. An egoist may fight or abstain as they see (rational / fit / entertaining). Many have claimed to bridge the is / ought divide, and with a few leaps of faith rationality appears to do so. But I say rationality is a-moral. IF I attack THEN I get your stuff ELSE run away is entirely rational.

What do you mean by "egoist" here?

3Viliam_Bur13y

A team of rational egoists could invent ways to make their precommitments credible. Then they could e.g. organize a lottery to randomly choose a few of them to sacrifice for the benefit of others. Assuming that (a) participating in the lottery is better on average than not participating in the lottery, and (b) the precommitments are credible, which means that once you have been chosen by the lottery, it would be worse or impossible to not sacrifice yourself for the benefits of other lottery participants, and (c) it is impossible to get the benefits of the lottery as positive externalities while not participating in the lottery... then a rational egoist would choose to participate in the lottery. Yeah, the three assumptions would be extremely difficult to fulfill. But there is no law of physics saying that it is impossible. And as DanielLC suggests, if people have other values beyong their personal profit, that only makes the solution easier.

1DanielLC13y

It's assuming they're all egoists. If you're not an egoist, you wouldn't need a complex solution to sacrifice the few to save the many.

6

[SEQ RERUN] Bayesians vs. Barbarians

6

6

6

[SEQ RERUN] Bayesians vs. Barbarians

6

6