The issue of how-to-deal-with-extortion is a hard one, but it’s just made fuzzier by adding the concept of simulations into the mix.
I agree that it’s a fuzzy mix, but not the one you have in mind. I intended to talk about the practical issues around simulations, not about extortion.
Given that the aliens’ extortion attempt cost them almost nothing, there’s not much hope of gaming things to prevent it. Properly constructed, the black spheres would not have an audit trail leading back to the aliens’ home, so a competent extortionist could prevent any counterattack. Extortion is not an interesting part of this situation.
If you care about them, then anybody with a big enough copier-of-humans, and enough torture chambers “can get you to do anything”, as you say. So it’s not really an issue that depends on caring for simulations. I wish the concept of “simulations” wasn’t needlessly added where it has no necessity to be entered.
Right. It’s an issue about caring about things that are provably irrelevant to your day-to-day activities.
I intended to talk about the practical issues around simulations, not about extortion.
If you don’t want to be talking about extortion, we shouldn’t be talking about simulations in the context of extortion. So far as I can tell, the points you’ve made about useless preferences only matter in the context of extortion, where it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about simulations or real people who have been created.
If it’s about caring about things that are irrelevant to your everyday life, then the average random person on the other side of the world honestly doesn’t matter much to you. They certainly wouldn’t have mattered a few hundred years ago. If you were transported to the 1300s, would you care about Native Americans? If so, why? If not, why are you focusing on the “simulation” part.
If it turns out that OUR universe is a simulation, I assume you do not consider our creators to have an obligation to consider our preferences?
Right. It’s an issue about caring about things that are provably irrelevant to your day-to-day activities.
Caring about those torturees feels a bit like being counterfactually mugged. Being the sort of person (or species) that doesn’t care about things that are provably irrelevant to your day-to-day activities would avoid this case of extortion, but depending on the universe that you are in, you might be giving up bigger positive opportunities.
Caring about those torturees feels a bit like being counterfactually mugged. Being the sort of person (or species) that doesn’t care about things that are provably irrelevant to your day-to-day activities would avoid this case of extortion, but depending on the universe that you are in, you might be giving up bigger positive opportunities.
I don’t understand yet. Can you give a more specific example?
The counterfactual mugging example paid off in dollars, which are typically shorthand for utility around here. Both utility and dollars are relevant to your day-to-day-activities, so the most straightforward interpretation of what you said doesn’t make sense to me.
Yes, its definitely not strictly a case of counterfactual mugging, it just struck me as having that flavor. I’ll see if I can be more specific.
At the point in time when you are confronted by omega in the counterfactual mugging scenario, there is provably no way in your day-to-day activities you will ever get anything for your $10 if you cough up. However, having the disposition to be counterfactually muggable is the winning move.
The analogy is that when deciding what our disposition should be with regards to caring about people we will never interact with, it might be the winning move to care, even if some of decision branches lead to bad outcomes.
The OP has a story where the caring outcome is bad. What about the other stories ? Like the one where everyone is living happily in their protected memory libertarian utopia until first contact day when a delegate from the galactic tourism board arrives and announces that he is blacklisting Earth because “I’ve seen some of the things you guys virtually do to each other and there’s no way I’m letting tourists transmit themselves over your networks”. And by the way he’s also enforcing a no-fly zone around the Earth until we “clean up our act”.
I agree that it’s a fuzzy mix, but not the one you have in mind. I intended to talk about the practical issues around simulations, not about extortion.
Given that the aliens’ extortion attempt cost them almost nothing, there’s not much hope of gaming things to prevent it. Properly constructed, the black spheres would not have an audit trail leading back to the aliens’ home, so a competent extortionist could prevent any counterattack. Extortion is not an interesting part of this situation.
Right. It’s an issue about caring about things that are provably irrelevant to your day-to-day activities.
If you don’t want to be talking about extortion, we shouldn’t be talking about simulations in the context of extortion. So far as I can tell, the points you’ve made about useless preferences only matter in the context of extortion, where it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about simulations or real people who have been created.
If it’s about caring about things that are irrelevant to your everyday life, then the average random person on the other side of the world honestly doesn’t matter much to you. They certainly wouldn’t have mattered a few hundred years ago. If you were transported to the 1300s, would you care about Native Americans? If so, why? If not, why are you focusing on the “simulation” part.
If it turns out that OUR universe is a simulation, I assume you do not consider our creators to have an obligation to consider our preferences?
Caring about those torturees feels a bit like being counterfactually mugged. Being the sort of person (or species) that doesn’t care about things that are provably irrelevant to your day-to-day activities would avoid this case of extortion, but depending on the universe that you are in, you might be giving up bigger positive opportunities.
The primary similarity seems to only be that the logic in question gives results which clash with our moral intuition.
I don’t understand yet. Can you give a more specific example?
The counterfactual mugging example paid off in dollars, which are typically shorthand for utility around here. Both utility and dollars are relevant to your day-to-day-activities, so the most straightforward interpretation of what you said doesn’t make sense to me.
Yes, its definitely not strictly a case of counterfactual mugging, it just struck me as having that flavor. I’ll see if I can be more specific.
At the point in time when you are confronted by omega in the counterfactual mugging scenario, there is provably no way in your day-to-day activities you will ever get anything for your $10 if you cough up. However, having the disposition to be counterfactually muggable is the winning move.
The analogy is that when deciding what our disposition should be with regards to caring about people we will never interact with, it might be the winning move to care, even if some of decision branches lead to bad outcomes.
The OP has a story where the caring outcome is bad. What about the other stories ? Like the one where everyone is living happily in their protected memory libertarian utopia until first contact day when a delegate from the galactic tourism board arrives and announces that he is blacklisting Earth because “I’ve seen some of the things you guys virtually do to each other and there’s no way I’m letting tourists transmit themselves over your networks”. And by the way he’s also enforcing a no-fly zone around the Earth until we “clean up our act”.