Precommitment is also a potentially good reason. I’m not sure what we disagree about anymore.
Is your objection to the Barbarians post that you fear it will be used to justify actually implementing unsavory measures like those it describes for use against barbarians?
If there is precommitment, it may be true that doing X would benefit you, you refuse to do X, and your refusal to do X is rational.
Eliezer said that if doing X would benefit you and you refuse to do X, that is not really rational.
Furthermore, whether X is rational depends on what the probability of the scenario was before it happened—even if the scenario is happening now. Eliezer as interpreted by you believes that if the scenario is happening now, the past probability of the scenario doesn’t affect whether X is rational (That’s why he could use optimized barbarians as an example in the first place, despite its low probability.)
Also, I happen to think that many cases of people “irrationally” acting on principle can be modelled as a type of precommitment. Precommitment is just how we formalize “I’m going to shop at the store with the lower price, even if I have to spend more on gas to get there” or “we should allow free speech/free press/etc. and I don’t care how many terrorists that helps”.
Precommitment is also a potentially good reason. I’m not sure what we disagree about anymore.
Is your objection to the Barbarians post that you fear it will be used to justify actually implementing unsavory measures like those it describes for use against barbarians?
If there is precommitment, it may be true that doing X would benefit you, you refuse to do X, and your refusal to do X is rational.
Eliezer said that if doing X would benefit you and you refuse to do X, that is not really rational.
Furthermore, whether X is rational depends on what the probability of the scenario was before it happened—even if the scenario is happening now. Eliezer as interpreted by you believes that if the scenario is happening now, the past probability of the scenario doesn’t affect whether X is rational (That’s why he could use optimized barbarians as an example in the first place, despite its low probability.)
Also, I happen to think that many cases of people “irrationally” acting on principle can be modelled as a type of precommitment. Precommitment is just how we formalize “I’m going to shop at the store with the lower price, even if I have to spend more on gas to get there” or “we should allow free speech/free press/etc. and I don’t care how many terrorists that helps”.
TDT/UDT and the outside view are how we formalize precommitment.