There is, I think, some wisdom exhibited in resisting systematizers armed with trolley problems.
Nicely put.
This seems to me a special case of the “bar bet” rule: if someone offers to bet me $20 that they can demonstrate something, I should confidently expect to lose the bet, no matter how low my priors are on expecting the thing itself. (That said, in many contexts I should take the bet anyway.)
It has to do with the social exchange of “bar bets” (I don’t actually hang out at bars, but that’s the trope; similar things happen in a lot of contexts). If I’m among friends (that is, it’s an iterated arrangement) and I flatly refuse to participate just on the grounds that there has to be a catch somewhere, without being able to articulate a good theory for what the catch is, I lose status that may well be worth more to me than the bet was.
Also, if someone says to you “I’ll bet you $20 I can ”, what they’re really saying is “I’m going to do , and it’ll be super interesting and fun for all involved, especially if you put in $20 so as to add an element of risk to the proceedings”.
The expectation is that some other night, you can bet them $20 about some interesting thing you can do.
Agreed. I think we’re kind of saying the same thing here, though your explanation is a lot more accessible. (I really should know better than to try to talk about social patterns when my head has been recently repatterned by software requirements specification.)
Nicely put.
This seems to me a special case of the “bar bet” rule: if someone offers to bet me $20 that they can demonstrate something, I should confidently expect to lose the bet, no matter how low my priors are on expecting the thing itself. (That said, in many contexts I should take the bet anyway.)
I realize that this is off topic, but why?
It has to do with the social exchange of “bar bets” (I don’t actually hang out at bars, but that’s the trope; similar things happen in a lot of contexts). If I’m among friends (that is, it’s an iterated arrangement) and I flatly refuse to participate just on the grounds that there has to be a catch somewhere, without being able to articulate a good theory for what the catch is, I lose status that may well be worth more to me than the bet was.
Also, if someone says to you “I’ll bet you $20 I can ”, what they’re really saying is “I’m going to do , and it’ll be super interesting and fun for all involved, especially if you put in $20 so as to add an element of risk to the proceedings”.
The expectation is that some other night, you can bet them $20 about some interesting thing you can do.
Agreed. I think we’re kind of saying the same thing here, though your explanation is a lot more accessible. (I really should know better than to try to talk about social patterns when my head has been recently repatterned by software requirements specification.)