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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Open Thread, October 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I would like advocates of TDT, UDT, etc, to comment on the following scenario.
Suppose I think of a possible world where there is a version of Genghis Khan who thinks of this version of me. Then I imagine Genghis imagining my responses to his possible actions. Finally I imagine him agreeing to not kill everyone in the next country he invades, if I commit to building a thirty-meter golden statue of him, in my world. Then I go and build the statue, feeling like a great humanitarian because I saved some lives in another possible world.
My questions are: Is this crazy? If so, why is it crazy? And, is there an example of similar reasoning that isn't crazy?
The "probability" of the imagined world is low, so the opportunity cost of this action makes it wrong. If there was a world fitting your description that had significant "probability" (for example, if you deduced that a past random event turning out differently would likely lead to the situation as you describe it), it would be a plausibly correct action to take.
(The unclear point is what contributes to a world's "probability"; presumably, arbitrary stipulations drive it down, so most thought experiments are morally irrelevant.)