I may be misunderstanding the multiple statements technique. I'd be willing to bet on upwards of a million to one odds that France is bigger than Italy. I would not be willing to make a million related sentences and expect to only be wrong once. The misunderstanding prob comes from the vagueness of "related" sentences. What does that mean?
In any case, the technique is only as good as the ability to judge which statements are equally difficult to a given statement
In order to do that you already have to know how sure you are of each sentence!! Isn't that cyclical?
I have to thank you. I was spiraling due to yudkowsky's writings. I even posted a question about what to do because I was paralyzed by the fear. This is a helpful post