entirelyuseless comments on A few misconceptions surrounding Roko's basilisk - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (125)
I would cooperate with you if I couldn't distinguish my code from yours, even if there might be minor differences, even in a one-shot case, because the best guess I would have of what you would do is that you would do the same thing that I do.
But since you're making it clear that your code is quite different, and in a particular way, I would defect against you.
You don't know who I am! I'm anonymous! Whoever you'd cooperate with, I might be that person (remember, in real life I pretend to have a completely different philosophy on this matter). Unless you defect against ALL HUMANS, you risk cooperating when facing me, since you don't know what my disguise will be.
I will take that chance into account. Fortunately it is a low one and should hardly be a reason to defect against all humans.
Cool, so in conclusion, if we met in real life and played a one-shot PD, you'd (probably) cooperate and I'd defect. My strategy seems superior.
And yet I somehow find myself more inclined to engage in PD-like interactions with entirelyuseless than with your good self.
Oh, yes, me too. I want to engage in one-shot PD games with entirelyuseless (as opposed to other people), because he or she will give me free utility if I sell myself right. I wouldn't want to play one-shot PDs against myself, in the same way that I wouldn't want to play chess against Kasparov.
By the way, note that I usually cooperate in repeated PD games, and most real-life PDs are repeated games. In addition, my utility function takes other people into consideration; I would not screw people over for small personal gains, because I care about their happiness. In other words, defecting in one-shot PDs is entirely consistent with being a decent human being.