But there is an obvious acausal path in this case. If other voters are using the same algorithm you are to decide whether or not to vote, or a “sufficiently similar” one (in some sense that would have to be fleshed out), then that inflates the probability that “your” decision of whether or not to vote is pivotal, because “you” are effectively multiple voters.
Is that sufficient, or do you need actual numbers? (I’d guess it is and you don’t.)
I guess it is, but I’d edit your question to mention that you include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality in your assumptions. Personally, I don’t think that other potential voters are all that similar to myself, so all decision theories lead to the same result (negative EV for voting, when considering only cost of time spent vs chance of pivotal outcome).
I very much do not include superrationality in my assumptions. I’m not assuming that all other voters, or even any specific individual other voter, is explicitly using a meta-rational decision theory; I’m simply allowing the possibility that the “expected acausal impact” of my decision is greater than 0 other voters. There are, I believe, a number of ways this could be “true”.
In simpler terms: I think that my beliefs (and definitions) about whether (how many) other voters are “like” me are orders of magnitude different from yours, in a way that is probably not empirically resolvable. I understand that taking your point of view as a given would make my original question relatively trivial, but I hope you understand that it is still an interesting question from my point of view, and that exploring it in that sense might even lead to productive insights that generalize over to your point of view (even though we’d probably still disagree about voting).
If you like, I guess, we could discuss this in a hypothetical world with a substantial number of superrational voters. For you this would merely be a hypothetical, which I think would be interesting for its own sake. For me, this would be a hypothetical special case of acausal links between voters, links which I believe do exist though not in that specific form.
But there is an obvious acausal path in this case. If other voters are using the same algorithm you are to decide whether or not to vote, or a “sufficiently similar” one (in some sense that would have to be fleshed out), then that inflates the probability that “your” decision of whether or not to vote is pivotal, because “you” are effectively multiple voters.
Is that sufficient, or do you need actual numbers? (I’d guess it is and you don’t.)
I guess it is, but I’d edit your question to mention that you include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality in your assumptions. Personally, I don’t think that other potential voters are all that similar to myself, so all decision theories lead to the same result (negative EV for voting, when considering only cost of time spent vs chance of pivotal outcome).
I very much do not include superrationality in my assumptions. I’m not assuming that all other voters, or even any specific individual other voter, is explicitly using a meta-rational decision theory; I’m simply allowing the possibility that the “expected acausal impact” of my decision is greater than 0 other voters. There are, I believe, a number of ways this could be “true”.
In simpler terms: I think that my beliefs (and definitions) about whether (how many) other voters are “like” me are orders of magnitude different from yours, in a way that is probably not empirically resolvable. I understand that taking your point of view as a given would make my original question relatively trivial, but I hope you understand that it is still an interesting question from my point of view, and that exploring it in that sense might even lead to productive insights that generalize over to your point of view (even though we’d probably still disagree about voting).
If you like, I guess, we could discuss this in a hypothetical world with a substantial number of superrational voters. For you this would merely be a hypothetical, which I think would be interesting for its own sake. For me, this would be a hypothetical special case of acausal links between voters, links which I believe do exist though not in that specific form.
Fair enough. That lack of empirical validation is a hallmark of esoteric decision theories, so is some evidence you’re on an interesting track :)