2. The anchor of a major news network donates lots of money to organizations fighting against gay marriage, and in his spare time he writes editorials arguing that homosexuals are weakening the moral fabric of the country. The news network decides they disagree with this kind of behavior and fire the anchor.
a) This is acceptable; the news network is acting within their rights and according to their principles b) This is outrageous; people should be judged on the quality of their work and not their political beliefs
…
12. The principal of a private school is a member of Planned Parenthood and, off-duty, speaks out about contraception and the morning after pill. The board of the private school decides this is inappropriate given the school’s commitment to abstinence and moral education and asks the principal to stop these speaking engagements or step down from his position.
a) The school board is acting within its rights; they can insist on a principal who shares their values b) The school board should back off; it’s none of their business what he does in his free time
…
[Difference] of 0 to 3: You are an Object-Level Thinker. You decide difficult cases by trying to find the solution that makes the side you like win and the side you dislike lose in that particular situation.
[Difference] of 4 to 6: You are a Meta-Level Thinker. You decide difficult cases by trying to find general principles that can be applied evenhandedly regardless of which side you like or dislike.
Say there are two tribes. The tribes hold fundamentally different values, but they also model the world in different terms. Each thinks members of the other tribe are mistaken, and that some of their apparent value disagreement would be resolved if the others’ mistakes were corrected.
Keeping this in mind, let’s think about inter-tribe cooperation and defection.
Ruling by Reference Classes, Rather Than Particulars
In the worst equilibrium, actors from each tribe evaluate political questions in favor of their own tribe, against the outgroup. In their world model, this is to a great extent for the benefit of the outgroup members as well.
But this is a shitty regime to live under when it’s done back to you too, so rival tribes can sometimes come together to implement an impartial judiciary. The natural way to do this is to have a judiciary classifier rule for reference classes of situations, and to have a separate impartial classifier sort situations into reference classes.
You’re locally worse off this way, but are globally much better off.
The Character of an Epistemic Prisoner’s Dilemma
Say there are two tribes. The tribes hold fundamentally different values, but they also model the world in different terms. Each thinks members of the other tribe are mistaken, and that some of their apparent value disagreement would be resolved if the others’ mistakes were corrected.
Keeping this in mind, let’s think about inter-tribe cooperation and defection.
Ruling by Reference Classes, Rather Than Particulars
In the worst equilibrium, actors from each tribe evaluate political questions in favor of their own tribe, against the outgroup. In their world model, this is to a great extent for the benefit of the outgroup members as well.
But this is a shitty regime to live under when it’s done back to you too, so rival tribes can sometimes come together to implement an impartial judiciary. The natural way to do this is to have a judiciary classifier rule for reference classes of situations, and to have a separate impartial classifier sort situations into reference classes.
You’re locally worse off this way, but are globally much better off.