TheOtherDave comments on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions - Less Wrong

71 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 August 2007 10:27PM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 19 October 2012 08:08:08PM 5 points [-]

Ah! I see. Yeah, it seems I wasn't thinking about Actual Russian Roulette, in which two players take turns and the most likely route to survival is my opponent blowing his brains out first, but rather Utterly Ridiculous Hypothetical Variation on Russian Roulette, in which I simply pull the trigger over and over while pointing at my own head, and the most likely route to survival is a nonfatal bullet wound.

Comment author: thomblake 19 October 2012 08:40:58PM 0 points [-]

I've made the exact same mistake before. Maybe there should be (or is) a name for that.

Comment author: wedrifid 19 October 2012 08:49:24PM 0 points [-]

Ah! I see. Yeah, it seems I wasn't thinking about Actual Russian Roulette, in which two players take turns and the most likely route to survival is my opponent blowing his brains out first, but rather Utterly Ridiculous Hypothetical Variation on Russian Roulette, in which I simply pull the trigger over and over while pointing at my own head, and the most likely route to survival is a nonfatal bullet wound.

Ahh, yes. That seems to be an impractical course of action even with faux-immortality. It may be worthwhile if some strange person was willing to pay exorbitant amounts of cash per shot and you were also permitted to spin the cartridge after every shot (or five shots) in order to randomize it. Then the accumulated improbability (ie. magnified injury and 'unknown black swan' possibility) would ultimately injure or otherwise interrupt you but only after your legacy had been improved significantly.