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gjm comments on Probabilities Small Enough To Ignore: An attack on Pascal's Mugging - Less Wrong Discussion
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Sure. But I think there are generally going to be more parsimonious explanations than any that involve him having the power to torture 3^^^3 people, let alone having that power and caring about whether I give him some money.
Parsimonious, sure. The possibility is very unlikely. But it doesn't just need to be "very unlikely", it needs to have smaller than 1/3^^^3 probability.
Sure. But if you have an argument that some guy who shows me apparent magical powers has the power to torture 3^^^3 people with probability substantially over 1/3^^^3, then I bet I can turn it into an argument that anyone, with or without a demonstration of magical powers, with or without any sort of claim that they have such powers, has the power to torture 3^^^3 people with probability nearly as substantially over 1/3^^^3. Because surely for anyone under any circumstances, Pr(I experience what seems to be a convincing demonstration that they have such powers) is much larger than 1/3^^^3, whether they actually have such powers or not.
Correct. That still doesn't solve the decision theory problem, it makes it worse. Since you have to take into account the possibility that anyone you meet might have the power to torture (or reward with utopia) 3^^^3 people.
It makes it worse or better, depending on whether you decide (1) that everyone has the power to do that with probability >~ 1/3^^^3 or (2) that no one has. I think #2 rather than #1 is correct.
Well, doing basic Bayes with a Kolmogorov priot gives you (1).