Not having read the other comments, I'd say Eliezer is being tedious.

I'd do whatever the hell I want, which is what I am already doing.

Interesting stuff about the preservation of phase space volume, though. I appreciate it, I previously knew nothing about that.

Reading today's fare is a bit like eating unflavored oatmeal. :-)

It seems to me that the person who can read this and understand it, already knows it.

But the person who does not know it, cannot understand it and will be frustrated by reading it.

I'm not sure what your intention is with the whole series of posts, but if you'd like to enligthen the muggles, the trick is to explain it in a concise, striking, unusual, easily understood, entertaining manner.

Of course, that takes genius. :-)

But otherwise you are writing primarily for people who already know it.

In yet other words: some of your posts, I will forward to my wife. Others, I won't. This one is one of the latter.

I should however note that one of the last mathy posts (Mutual Information) struck a chord with me and caused an "Aha!" moment for which I am grateful.

Specifically, it was this:

I digress here to remark that the symmetry of the expression for the mutual information shows that Y must tell us as much about Z, on average, as Z tells us about Y. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to reconcile this with anything they were taught in logic class about how, if all ravens are black, being allowed to reason Raven(x)->Black(x) doesn't mean you're allowed to reason Black(x)->Raven(x). How different seem the symmetrical probability flows of the Bayesian, from the sharp lurches of logic - even though the latter is just a degenerate case of the former.

Insightful!

I think you should go with the advice and post something fun. Especially so if you have "much important material" to cover in following months. No need for a big hurry to lose readers. ;)

Eliezer - the way question #1 is phrased, it is basically a choice between the following:

1. Be perceived as a hero, with certainty.

2. Be perceived as a hero with 90% probability, and continue not to be noticed with 10% probability.

This choice will be easy for most people. The expected 50 extra deaths are a reasonable sacrifice for the certainty of being perceived as a hero.

The way question #2 is phrased, it is similarly a choice between the following:

1. Be perceived as a villain, with certainty.

2. Not be noticed with 90% probability, and be perceived as a villain with 10% probability.

Again, the choice is obvious. Choose #2 to avoid being perceived as a villain.

If you argue that the above interpretations are then not altruistic, I think the "Repugnant Conclusion" link shows how futile it is to try to make actual "altruistic decisions".

Not sure if anyone pointed this out, but in a situation where you don't trust the organizer, the proper execution of 1A is a lot easier to verify than the proper execution of 1B, 2A and 2B.

1A minimizes your risk of being fooled by some hidden cleverness or violation of the contract. In 1B, 2A and 2B, if you lose, you have to verify that the random number generator is truly random. This can be extremely costly.

In option 1A, verification consists of checking your bank account and seeing that you gained $24,000. Straightforward and simple. Hardly any risk of being deceived.

For all your talk about The One, I'm going to start to call you Morpheus.

Eliezer - who is this "the one" you keep talking about? Do you mean Neo? ;)

Joseph - well, people like you aren't the ones who need to be accompanied to the stadium by the police.