How many hours per week do you spend reading (anything at all, including for work and school, fiction and nonfiction, Less Wrong and other web sites).
How many hours per week do you spend composing text (writing or typing for work or school, blog comments, emails, diaries, stories, math papers, or anything else).
True Prisoner’s Dilemma: Cooperator or defect?
Are you confused by the subject of free will? (yes/somewhat/no)
This is problematic, in that it depends a lot on what I know about the person I’m playing with. If it’s a total stranger I’ll probably defect, if it’s a copy of me or someone that I think is committed to superrationality I’ll probably cooperate.
Also, just “True Prisoner’s Dilemma” is pretty vague—the actual rewards and penalties matter. I’m a lot more inclined to cooperate if the cost of my opponent defecting is “lose this game of Diplomacy” rather than “be tortured for 50 years”.
Ah, I’d forgotten that one. That one’s problematic as well, though, given that different people will value “2 billion lives saved” differently. Even ignoring issues of scope insensitivity when we’re talking about numbers on this scale, for sufficiently selfish people the notion of saving lives would actually be less of a dilemma than if there was a personal cost to themselves. Or negative utilitarians might consider it a good thing if there were fewer humans on Earth, though you could possibly fix this by specifying that the disease kills slowly and painfully and causes more suffering than if the people lived normal lives, or something.
Yes, it depends entirely on who you’re playing against. If it’s a rock you obviously defect, if it’s a copy of yourself you obviously cooperate, and then at some point between those two it switches from one to the other. True Prisoner’s Dilemma is underspecified.
Most people will not have measured how many hours per week they spend reading / writing, and people’s guesses about where their time goes tend to be surprisingly inaccurate.
I don’t get why people expect others to answer truthfully on how they would behave in the True Prisoner’s Dilemma- the Fake True Prisoner’s Dilemma isn’t the True Prisoner’s Dilemma!
The True Prisoner’s Dilemma is any situation where you absolutely prefer (D, C) over (C, C) over (D, D) over (C, D). The very point of the True Prisoner’s Dilemma is that you are tempted to defect, and that you should defect if that doesn’t mean that the other guy also defects. If the other guy is a cooperate-bot, you should defect, if the other guy is a defect-bot, you should defect, if the other guy is a random-decision-bot, you should defect, but you should cooperate if your defection means also the other guy’s defection.
So whether you cooperate or defect in it depends absolutely on how you believe cooperation or defection will raise the likely probability of each scenario; and the corresponding stakes at hand. These are all relevant details which can’t be summarized in an abstraction like “True Prisoner’s Dilemma, cooperate or defect”. Well, it frigging depends on the exact details of situation, and in particular on the opponent you are facing.
Now if it was specified “True Prisoner’s Dilemma against an identical copy of yourself. Cooperate or Defect?” that would gives me enough information to decide “cooperate”.
Bonus questions:
How many hours per week do you spend reading (anything at all, including for work and school, fiction and nonfiction, Less Wrong and other web sites).
How many hours per week do you spend composing text (writing or typing for work or school, blog comments, emails, diaries, stories, math papers, or anything else).
True Prisoner’s Dilemma: Cooperator or defect?
Are you confused by the subject of free will? (yes/somewhat/no)
This is problematic, in that it depends a lot on what I know about the person I’m playing with. If it’s a total stranger I’ll probably defect, if it’s a copy of me or someone that I think is committed to superrationality I’ll probably cooperate.
Also, just “True Prisoner’s Dilemma” is pretty vague—the actual rewards and penalties matter. I’m a lot more inclined to cooperate if the cost of my opponent defecting is “lose this game of Diplomacy” rather than “be tortured for 50 years”.
I had these same objections, but I assumed he was referencing this particular formalization.
Ah, I’d forgotten that one. That one’s problematic as well, though, given that different people will value “2 billion lives saved” differently. Even ignoring issues of scope insensitivity when we’re talking about numbers on this scale, for sufficiently selfish people the notion of saving lives would actually be less of a dilemma than if there was a personal cost to themselves. Or negative utilitarians might consider it a good thing if there were fewer humans on Earth, though you could possibly fix this by specifying that the disease kills slowly and painfully and causes more suffering than if the people lived normal lives, or something.
Make the 2 billion lives saved into 2000 lives saved plus two kicks in the groin.
Yes, it depends entirely on who you’re playing against. If it’s a rock you obviously defect, if it’s a copy of yourself you obviously cooperate, and then at some point between those two it switches from one to the other. True Prisoner’s Dilemma is underspecified.
Most people will not have measured how many hours per week they spend reading / writing, and people’s guesses about where their time goes tend to be surprisingly inaccurate.
If Facebook, instant messaging, lyrics on karaoke screens, etc. count as reading, then I spend the vast majority of my waking hours reading.
What about subtitles on TV shows, because my laptop speakers suck? lol
Does being on facebook count as “reading”?
Yes, for the fraction of the time that you’re reading text on it as opposed to writing or looking at pictures.
Do you think that people can estimate those things in a productive fashion?
I’m not even sure that’d be well-defined. In a randomly-chosen millisecond I’m on Facebook, I’m likely doing several of those things at once.
Upvoted for Prisoner’s Dilemma. I think this would be a very interesting question.
I don’t get why people expect others to answer truthfully on how they would behave in the True Prisoner’s Dilemma- the Fake True Prisoner’s Dilemma isn’t the True Prisoner’s Dilemma!
Well, we can’t possibly know how they would play the TPD. By definition, after we play TPD we can never interact again.
That’s part of the fun.
I don’ t think you understand the True Prisoner’s Dilemma, if you think that’s a meaningful question.
Could you explain your statement? Why is the question “cooperate or defect?” not meaningful in the True Prisoner’s Dilemma?
The True Prisoner’s Dilemma is any situation where you absolutely prefer (D, C) over (C, C) over (D, D) over (C, D). The very point of the True Prisoner’s Dilemma is that you are tempted to defect, and that you should defect if that doesn’t mean that the other guy also defects. If the other guy is a cooperate-bot, you should defect, if the other guy is a defect-bot, you should defect, if the other guy is a random-decision-bot, you should defect, but you should cooperate if your defection means also the other guy’s defection.
So whether you cooperate or defect in it depends absolutely on how you believe cooperation or defection will raise the likely probability of each scenario; and the corresponding stakes at hand. These are all relevant details which can’t be summarized in an abstraction like “True Prisoner’s Dilemma, cooperate or defect”. Well, it frigging depends on the exact details of situation, and in particular on the opponent you are facing.
Now if it was specified “True Prisoner’s Dilemma against an identical copy of yourself. Cooperate or Defect?” that would gives me enough information to decide “cooperate”.