Sorry for such a late reply… Just so I understand the point, the point is “whoever can better model their opponent while themselves being able to then precommit to an action is the one in a superior epistemic vantage, whoever can go ‘deeper’ in the counterfactuals wins”?
ie, just so I understand, is the only thing stopping the countess from doing the same sort of counterfactual modelling on the baron, from having strategies that are functions of which strategy the baron chooses being that simply “by assumption, the countess’s code/computational resources are lesser”? Or is there something about the situation that inherently leads to the countess having fewer options, however sophisticated she is and however much computational resources available to her?
(first, sorry for replying to this thing so late. I was a bit ill for a while, wasn’t really up to tackling this/thinking about it)
Near as I can make out, one ends up with a “precommitment arms race”
ie, what stops the countess from credibly precommiting to “If you blackmail me, I will not only not pay, but will immediately and publicly reveal all myself”? And then the baron will have a way of precommiting to “no matter what, I’m going to blackmail you”, and basically one ends up with a precommitment race until one side or the other blinks or they both make each other miserable. (or did I completely miss the point?)
Sorry for such a late reply… Just so I understand the point, the point is “whoever can better model their opponent while themselves being able to then precommit to an action is the one in a superior epistemic vantage, whoever can go ‘deeper’ in the counterfactuals wins”?
ie, just so I understand, is the only thing stopping the countess from doing the same sort of counterfactual modelling on the baron, from having strategies that are functions of which strategy the baron chooses being that simply “by assumption, the countess’s code/computational resources are lesser”? Or is there something about the situation that inherently leads to the countess having fewer options, however sophisticated she is and however much computational resources available to her?
(first, sorry for replying to this thing so late. I was a bit ill for a while, wasn’t really up to tackling this/thinking about it)
Near as I can make out, one ends up with a “precommitment arms race”
ie, what stops the countess from credibly precommiting to “If you blackmail me, I will not only not pay, but will immediately and publicly reveal all myself”? And then the baron will have a way of precommiting to “no matter what, I’m going to blackmail you”, and basically one ends up with a precommitment race until one side or the other blinks or they both make each other miserable. (or did I completely miss the point?)