I have to admit, I've never understood Hanson's Near-Far distinction either. As described it just doesn't seem to mesh at all with how I think about thinking. I keep hoping someone else will post their interpretation of it from a sufficiently different viewpoint that I can at least understand it well enough to know if I agree with it or not.

A friend of mine has offered to lend me the Kushiel series on a number of occasions. I'm starting to think I should take her up on that.

Interesting point: How does anybody find LW? Suppose you're out in cyberspace, wanting to discuss rationality. What search term could you enter to find this place? Googling "rationality" doesn't turn up LW.

Should I put a link to Less Wrong in the Wikipedia page on rationality? Is there a better keyword than 'rationality' for LW?

It's not capricious in the sense you give: you are capable of predicting some of its actions: because it's assumed Omega is perfectly trustworthy, you can predict with certainty what it will do if it tells you what it will do.

So, if it says it'll give you 10k$ in some condition (say, if you one-box its challenge), you can predict that it'll give it the money if that condition arises.

If it were capricious in the sense of complete inability of being predicted, it might amputate three of your toes and give you a flower garland.

Note that the problem supposes you do have certainty that Omega is trustworthy; I see no way of reaching that epistemological state, but then again I see no way Omega could be omnipotent, either.

On an somewhat unrelated note, why would Omega ask you for 100$ if it had simulated you wouldn't give it the money? Also, why would it do the same if it had simulated you would give it the money? What possible use would an omnipotent agent have for 100$?

I never knew I had an inbox. Thanks for telling us about that, but I wonder if we might not want to redesign the home page to make some things like that a bit more obvious.

This touches on something that I've been thinking about, but am not sure how to put into words. My wife is the most rational woman that I know, and its one of the things that I love about her. She's been reading Overcoming Bias, but I've never been completely sure if its due to the material, or because she's a fan of Eliezer. Its probably a combination of the two. In either case, she's shown no interest in this particular group, and I'm not sure why.

I also have a friend who is the smartest person and the best thinker that I've ever met. He's a practicing rationalist but of the sort who uses it as a means to an end. In his case its the design of computer systems of all kinds. Now, I haven't even bothered to point out the Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong communities to him, as I can't imagine he'd have any interest in them, although I'm sure he'd provide useful insights if one could get him interested.

So, of the three most likely candidates to participate in this group that I know of, only one does. This may well be partly due to my own biases in which groups of people I select to tell about which blogs I read, but I think some of it has got to be due to this site being somehow appealing to a narrower segment of the population than those who it might be most valuable to.

I have no proposed solution. This is simply an observation.

In addition to what Z M Davis said, I voted both of your posts down because I felt they added nothing useful to the discussion. Thomblake's was just information responding to yours, so I left it alone.

This comment isn't meant as arrogant or aggressive, just an explanation since it seems you've asked for one.

To directly answer your question:

Could it be that someone objects to pointing out that the game is a money sink and therefore one might have perfectly rational reasons to avoid it?

I do not object to the comment, but I think it is less valuable than other comments. Hope that helps.

Posts now start at zero, with self-voting no longer allowed.

its been carefully designed to continually suck more money out of your pocket.

The game was actually designed without the 'collectable' element, which emerged naturally from the design process since everybody always wanted access to more/newer cards as they played. See any of the various histories regarding Richard Garfield's original concept and playtesting.

Arguably, the focus on sucking money out of your pocket came about the time the cards began to develop aftermarket values, it became widely popular, and events like sanctioned tournaments and the 'pro tour' began ('94-'96)

I have a Magic deck, but I don't often play. That's because Magic is not only an interesting game, its been carefully designed to continually suck more money out of your pocket.

Ever since it was first introduced (I happen to own a first generation deck) the game has been slowly increasing the power levels of the cards so that older cards are less and less valuable and one needs to buy ever more newer cards just to stay competitive.

Add to this the fact they regularly bring out new types of cards that radically shift the power balances in the game and one finds that it becomes a very expensive hobby to keep up with if you want to play with a random assortment of your friends.

So, like Warhammer 40K (another game known for being designed to be a money sink), I've deliberately stayed away from being competitive at. Oh, I have a few decks back from when the game was launched and recently was gifted another few by a friend who wanted to play, and I really do enjoy playing, but I'm not going to let myself get sucked in.