I actually learned the names of all the states from a song and learned where they are from a jigsaw puzzle.

I had a state Jigsaw puzzle at one point and I distinctly remember the "Fifty Nifty United States Song." so I want to confirm that you are not the only one who has had these things happen.

Well, first of all, if you set aside enough money for retirement, you can retire early. Example: If your retirement accounts are 84,000 dollars at 64, you probably aren't retiring early. But if your retirement accounts are 84,000 dollars at 29, retiring early looks far more practical. Imagine being able to be retired at 50 instead of 65.

Second of all, if you have enough in your retirement accounts, rather than having your descendants support you, you can support your descendants. Personally, I think my descendants (in this case, my nephew, I don't have any kids of my own yet) are awesome (happy bonding family brain chemicals are like that.) and would love to give to him support.

Third of all, if your government has a certain level of dysfunction, you may not trust your state to give you a good retirement plan.

Fourth of all... I don't need to spend the money now for more utility. The marginal gains on money for utility trades are fairly pathetic right now. The best results I get are "luxury" food items because I actually have time to eat them. Other than that it's a solid regiment of allocated time (even rest time is usually pretty well allocated doing social maintenance). And I can't easily take vacation days with my current workload to only enjoy things. When I take vacation days (or honestly, even sick days) it's usually to visit relatives, or run errands, or more social maintenance.

On the other hand, if I had more time (because I was retired) I could do all sorts of things with money to get utility.

That was a good article! I also find it noteworthy that the sucessful example of humans recovering from a failure involved them extensively using checklists, particularly in reference to automation and deskilling in general.

Thank you for the clarification. I'm still confused about something, and to explain where I was getting stuck, I think it may have been the deciders prediction of the Muggers/expected fact of the universes response to the question "Can you show me more evidence that you are a Matrix Lord(or a fact of the universe set up with comparable probability and utility.)"

For instance, if the Mugger might say:

A: "Sure, let me open a firey portal in the sky."

B: "Let me call the next several coinflips you toss."

C: "No, you'll just have to judge based on the current evidence."

D: "You were correct to question me, this was actually a scam."

E: "You question me? The offer is now invalidated and/or I have killed those people."

F: "You can't investigate this right now because your evidence gathering abilities are too low, but you could use these techniques to increase your maximum evidence gathering abilities. With sufficient repeated application, you would be able to investigate the original problem."

On the other hand, a fact of the universe may be such that:

A: Further investigation leads to sudden dramatic shifts such as firey portals.

B: Further investigation leads to more evidence that it's right, but nothing dramatic.

C: Further investigation leads nowhere new. You'll have to decide on current evidence.

D: Further investigation shows worrying about this was a waste of time.

E: Further investigation caused you to lose the opportunity: it was time sensitive.

F: Further investigation leads you to better investigative techniques, but you still can't actually investigate the original problem. Perhaps you should try again?

And I was thinking "If it's impersonal and simple, such as the box, maybe you may be stuck with C. But Foolish, Sadistic, or Testing Lords may give you anywhere from A-F." (A testing lord in particular seems likely to give you scenario F.)

However, from your, Stuart_Armstrong and ArisKatsaris's replies, this is not actually the area that is currently of concern, but I'm still somewhat confused about which position A-F I should be taking, whether it is just irrelevant to the problem and all would be handled the same, or whether some/each represents an entirely separate scenario which should be handled on it's own.

the impersonal version of the mugging

To make sure I understand this correctly, is one example of this essentially a Pascal's Mugging collection box - The box has a note on it with a Pascal's Mugging on those who read it, but it's an inanimate box, so you can't actually interact with it or ask any clarifying questions?

I considered this, and I'm not sure if I am considering the mugging from the right perspective.

For instance, in the case of a mugger who is willing to talk with you, even if the actual amount of evidence was mathematically indeterminate (Say the amount is defined as 'It's a finite number higher than any number that could fit in your brain.' and the probability is defined as 'closer to 0 then any positive number you can fit in your brain that isn't 0') you might still attempt to figure out the direction that talking about evidence made the evidence about the mugger go and use that for decision making

If as you talk to him, the mugger provides more and more evidence that he is a matrix lord, you could say "Sure, Here's 5 dollars."

Or If as you talk to him, the mugger provides more and more evidence that he is a mugger, you could say "No, go away."

(Note: I'm NOT saying the above is correct or incorrect yet! Among other things, you could also use the SPEED at which the mugger was giving you evidence as an aid to decision making. You might say yes to a Mugger who offers a million bits of evidence all at once, and no to a Mugger who offers evidence one bit at a time.)

However, in the case below, you can't even do that - Or you could attempt to, but with the worry that even talking about it itself makes a decision:

Cruel Mugger: "Give me 5 dollars and I use my powers to save a shitload of lives. Do anything else, like talking about evidence or walking away, and they die."

So, to consider the problem from the right perspective, should I be attempting to solve the Mugging, the Cruel Mugging, both separately, or both as if they are the same problem?

I don't know if such an interpretation is generally what other people have in their minds.

Well, I am imagining it's something along the line of "I'll give you a kiss if you get me a soda from the fridge."

Guy: You mean I just have to walk over to the fridge and I get a kiss? Score!

Girl: You mean I just have to give out a kiss while sitting and I don't have to get up and get my soda? Score!

I mean, if my wife said "I girl-game my way into getting what I want (Charming you is fun!)" That's what I would assume she meant.

Of course, you CAN girl-game your way to a favor with Sex, but I would imagine you usually don't need to go anywhere near that far for much smaller favors.

That being said, I'm thinking of already being in a relationship. I'm not entirely sure how this would work on a flirting with an unattached person level, since I don't recall ever receiving much flirting before I was in a relationship.

I have a point I have thought of in regards to Pascal's Mugging where I notice I am confused: What if an entire localized area is being mugged?

Example: Assume you give into standard muggings. Someone drops off a collection box right near your house. The collection box says "For each person that steps near this box on a day, there must be a deposit of 5 dollars before one day passes or I will simulate and kill 3^^^3 people as a Matrix Lord. Any interference or questioning of the box will make me simulate and kill 3^^^^3 people as a Matrix Lord."

Since we are assuming you are the kind of person who gives into standard muggings, when you step to within 1 foot near the box out of curiosity to read the text, you think "Yikes! That's a standard Mugging!" and deposit 5 dollars, determined to not interfere with or question the box.

The next day, you get within 10 feet of the box when walking home. Do you give money to the box?

Do you give money if it's a person repeating the same message over and over again?

What if you only get within 100 feet, or you can barely hear the message from your distance?

So my confusion is that making the assumption "I give into muggings." Works fairly clearly for single target muggings, but it doesn't resolve much at all in the case of a localized area of effect mugging. And there doesn't seem to be reason to assume a mugging would not affect an area. Fake Muggers would certainly want more victims. A Real Matrix Lord might want to make demands from multiple people for their inscrutable purposes. And in my example the penalty for questioning is so bad it seems unlikely you could justify gathering information about what "near" meant to try resolving the problem.

This is clearly not a problem if you don't give into muggings at all, but I realized it means that only giving into muggings alone doesn't actually clearly define your behavior in a case like this. There's the kind of a person who only gives when they are a foot away, and the kind of person who hears about the box from a mile away and still comes by and gives every day and the kind of person who shoots anyone who steps near the box because they might interfere, and the kind of person who shoots HIM because HE is interfering... I can see potential arguments any of these people could make for how they were trying to follow the will of the mugger, but none of them agree with each other at all.

Now that I've laid that out though, I'm not sure if that can be turned into a clear argument against muggings.

When building the physical device, is the Turing Machine it is required to beat also required to have a potential physical instance in the observable universe?

What I mean is, if there are (A) atoms in the observable universe, and I think of a type of question that would provably take a Turing Machine at least (10A) atoms to answer, and then build a Non-Turing Machine that answers those questions in only 1 million atoms, then a Hypothetical Turing Machine could answer the question, but no Physical Turing Machine made of (10A) atoms could be found in the observable Universe.

However, I'm not sure if this falls into the bounds of the sexed up mistakes you are referring to above, or if it doesn't.

I watched one of the videos you linked, and I have to admit, the scenes containing "50% of all baby chicks tossed into a grinder." and "Flies eating a live pig." Were both pretty bad. But, honestly, I'm more troubled by the fact that I am not troubled by most of those video clips than I am actually troubled by the video clips.