Do you act all rational at home . . or do you switch out of work mode and stuff pizza and beer in front of the TV like any normal akrasic person? (and if you do act all rational, what do your partner/family/housemates make of it? do any of them ever give you a slap upside the head?)

:-)

Can you make a living out of this rationality / SI / FAI stuff . . . or do you have to be independently wealthy?

I have been in Ashley's situation - roped in to play a similar parlour game to demonstrate game theory in action.

In my case it was in a work setting: part of a two day brainstorming / team building boondongle.

In my game there were five tables each with eight people, all playing the same, iterarted game.

In four out of five table every single person cooperated in every single iteration - including the first and last one. On the fifth table they got confused about the rules.

The reason for the behaviour was clear - the purpose of the game was to demonstrate that cooperation increased the total size of the pot (the game was structered that way). In a workplace setting the prize was to win the approbation of the trainers and managers, by demonstrating that we were teamplayers, and certainly NOT to be the asshole who cheated his tablemates and walked off with $50.

On the the fifth table they managed to confuse themselves such that on the first iteration two of them unwittingly defected. Their table therefore ended up with the least money, but the two individuals of course ended up the richest in the room - they were hideously embarrassed.

I was left wondering what amount of money it would have taken to change behaviour. Would people defect if there was $1000 at stake? In that setting, I think still not. $10,000? $100,000 ?

Practical game-theory experiments would be quite expensive to run, I think.

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something" Thoreau

What a lot of comments (and I was worried that it was all too trivial. Lesson: never underestimate the power of Dr Who) Thanks all.

@Nanani - yes, indeed, the initial round up of 600 or so was composed of waifs and strays like that, inc the ill. But when the demand of 10% was acceded to there wasn't time to handpick

@SharedPhoenix - I agree and a strength of this story was that was no easy way out. The scenario was played out right to the end with the main character forced to make a rational sacrifice. OK, he found a way for it to be jsut one child, but there was still a choice.

@mikem - I disagree. Yes there were selfish cabinet members simply looking out for their own (this was dealt with in several contexts - there was an assumption that the interests of one's own child is beyond the limit of human rationality) however the decision to accede to this, and actually make this a policy was taken by the prime minister for rational reasons. He recognised that unless he spared the children of the decision makers and enforcers, there would be no decisions and no enforcing. It was purely rational. (And 'units' yes I meant that it was a plausible that such a sinister euphemism would be employed)

@jwdink - yes, I was surprised they took that route (the rational give-in rather than fight to death) in TV-Land it was an unusual decision. That's why I wrote the post about it :-)

Robin made it clear that he will not continue a debate with someone who does not show proper deference to white papers.

what i'd actually like to see would be Robin Hanson v Mencius Moldbug

William Gibson? http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/index.asp

He also thinks a lot - and cleverly - about the future but in a different way from Eliezer.

good luck. I am out of town today, but perhaps the next one...

It all goes to show that

what's grist to the mill is nose to the grindstone.