Lumifer comments on Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Clarity 27 June 2016 01:46AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 29 June 2016 08:45:35PM 1 point [-]

Cooperation is not a terminal goal. Winning the game is.

If I don't see my team's Reaper (or Tracer) ever, but the rear ranks of the enemy team mysteriously drop dead on a regular basis, that's perfectly fine.

Comment author: James_Miller 29 June 2016 09:23:06PM *  1 point [-]

Cooperation is not a terminal goal

Agreed, but if a virtue and comparative advantage of rationalists is cooperating than our path to victory won't often involve us using Reaper or Tracer.

Do you play on the Xbox?

Comment author: Lumifer 30 June 2016 12:16:01AM 1 point [-]

I'm a bit mystified by how cooperation became a "virtue and comparative advantage of rationalists". I understand why culturally, but if you start from the first principles, it doesn't follow. In a consequentialist framework there is no such thing as virtue, the concept just doesn't exist. And cooperation should theoretically be just one of the many tools of a rationalist who is trying to win. In situations where it's advantageous she'll cooperate and where it isn't she won't.

Nope, I play on a PC.

Comment author: James_Miller 30 June 2016 02:18:50AM 2 points [-]

Rationality is systematized winning. If failure to cooperate keeps people like us from winning then we should make cooperation a virtue and practice it when we can. (I'm literally playing Overwatch while I answer this.)

Comment author: Lumifer 30 June 2016 04:06:59AM 1 point [-]

The situation is symmetrical: if eagerness to cooperate keeps people like us from winning then we should make non-cooperation a virtue and practice it when we can.

My multitasking isn't as good :-)

Comment author: James_Miller 30 June 2016 05:43:54AM 0 points [-]

I guess it comes down to what has a higher marginal benefit, learning to cooperate or learning to succeed without cooperation.

Comment author: Lumifer 30 June 2016 02:31:39PM 0 points [-]

Why are you phrasing this as either-or? We don't need to decide whether a hammer or a screwdriver has a "higher marginal benefit", we use both as appropriate. Cooperating is conditional on it being useful, sometimes it's a good idea and sometimes it's not.

Getting back to Overwatch, there are cases where you need to grab an assassin and go hunting for the enemy sniper, and there are cases where you need to be a healbot and just stand behind your tank...

Comment author: James_Miller 03 July 2016 01:23:20AM 0 points [-]

I was wrong. Reaper and Mei can greatly benefit from cooperation.