That’s a reasonable assumption, but it’s wrong in this case. Ben greatly values both LessWrong staying up and this serious experiment celebrating Petrov day. But the experiment can be serious only if he commits to shutting down the site when somebody enters the codes. Ben thought there was only a 20% chance of that happening. So the other reasonable conclusion is:
Value of Petrov Day Experiment > 0.2 * Value of LessWrong not going down for a day
That’s a reasonable assumption, but it’s wrong in this case. Ben greatly values both LessWrong staying up and this serious experiment celebrating Petrov day. But the experiment can be serious only if he commits to shutting down the site when somebody enters the codes. Ben thought there was only a 20% chance of that happening. So the other reasonable conclusion is:
And Ben acted accordingly.