The mugger might also be a con artist, seeking to profit from fraudulent claims, in which case I have turned the dilemma on it’s head: anyone considering a similar scam in the future would have to weigh the small chance of vast disutility associated with provoking the same reaction again.
Why not go with “Give him the dollar, then investigate further and take appropriate actions”? I think the mugger is more likely to be a crazy person than an incompetent con artist, and much, much likelier to be either than an evil wizard, so rather than not perfect, I would call your solution cruel—most of the time you’ll end up killing someone for being mentally ill. I guess I can understand why you think there ought to be a harsh punishment for threatening unimaginable skillions of people, but don’t you still have that option if it turns out the mugger is reasonably sane?
In more realistic circumstances, yes, I would most likely respond to someone attempting to extort trivial concessions with grandiose and/or incoherent threats by stalling for time and contacting the appropriate authorities.
But… isn’t that what we’re talking about? Did I miss some detail about the mugging that makes it impossible in real life, or something? In what way are the circumstances unrealistic?
Or do you mean you were just playing, and not seriously proposing this solution at all?
I’m against killing crazy people, since I’m generally against killing people and other crazy people are not likely to be deterred.
I’m not saying it’s the best possible solution.
The mugger might also be a con artist, seeking to profit from fraudulent claims, in which case I have turned the dilemma on it’s head: anyone considering a similar scam in the future would have to weigh the small chance of vast disutility associated with provoking the same reaction again.
Why not go with “Give him the dollar, then investigate further and take appropriate actions”? I think the mugger is more likely to be a crazy person than an incompetent con artist, and much, much likelier to be either than an evil wizard, so rather than not perfect, I would call your solution cruel—most of the time you’ll end up killing someone for being mentally ill. I guess I can understand why you think there ought to be a harsh punishment for threatening unimaginable skillions of people, but don’t you still have that option if it turns out the mugger is reasonably sane?
In more realistic circumstances, yes, I would most likely respond to someone attempting to extort trivial concessions with grandiose and/or incoherent threats by stalling for time and contacting the appropriate authorities.
But… isn’t that what we’re talking about? Did I miss some detail about the mugging that makes it impossible in real life, or something? In what way are the circumstances unrealistic?
Or do you mean you were just playing, and not seriously proposing this solution at all?
Scenarios involving arbitrarily powerful agents dicking around with us mere mortals in solvable ways always seem unrealistic to me.