Although it is standard practice around here, “blackmail” is a weird name for this phenomenon. Why not “extortion”?
In the broader world, “blackmail” is a particular kind of extortion in which the threat is to reveal information (occasionally people use it more broadly, particularly in “emotional blackmail,” which seems to just come from the same kind of sloppiness that led this community to call it “blackmail”). Calling bargaining “blackmail” sounds weird because bargaining has nothing to do with revealing information, but it is quite common to recognize a fine line between bargaining and extortion.
On topic:
Presumably the distinction between extortion and trade is in counterfactuals: in the extortion case the target is better off if they are known to be unwilling to respond to extortion, while in the trade case the target is better off if they are known to be willing to respond to trade. That seems like the most promising way to get at a formal distinction. Certainly this is tricky and we don’t yet have a good enough understanding of decision theory to make clean statements. But I’m not sure if thinking about it as being about a “default” is useful though, we can take a step forward by replacing default with “what would happen if the trader/extorter didn’t think that trade/extortion was possible.” This makes it clear that norms are mostly relevant insofar as they bear on this counterfactual.
It makes sense that an extorter would like to convince the target of extortion that things would have been much worse for the target if they weren’t expected to play ball, in exactly the same way that the extorter would like to convince the target that things will be much worse for the target if they don’t actually play ball, or that a trader who wants to sell X would like to convince people that X is more valuable.
This kind of deception seems pretty straightforward compared to the more sticky issue of trying to make logically prior commitments, and the general fact that we don’t understand very well how decision theory should work.
I’d like people not to threaten to hit me to get my stuff. I’d like people to trade with me. I’d like people who trade with me not to precommit to taking 90% of the gains from trade. I’d also like people who trade with me not to precommit to taking 10% of the gains from trade.
Hell, if someone is going to hit me anyway, I’d like the option of paying them a little to make them hit less hard.
It seems to me that counterfactual is just another word for default—ie the alternative that would have happened if they’d not decided to extort/trade.
It seems to me that counterfactual is just another word for default—ie the alternative that would have happened if they’d not decided to extort/trade.
Sure, we can use default as another name for a particular counterfactual. Note that many people around here are already asking “how should we compute logical counterfactuals?” Thinking about defaults suggests an emphasis on different considerations, like norms, which seem like the wrong place to start.
(Note also that “what would have happened if they’d not decided to extort/trade” isn’t the right counterfactual, so if that’s what “default” means then I don’t think that defaults are the important questions. We care about counterfactuals over our behavior, or over other peoples’ beliefs about our behavior.)
Do you expect that decision theory will reach a single conclusion here, or that it’ll be a more scissor-paper-stone situations (hence the ideal outcome is to minimise the loss to extorsion and maximise the gain to trade, while accepting they’re in tension)?
Although it is standard practice around here, “blackmail” is a weird name for this phenomenon. Why not “extortion”?
In the broader world, “blackmail” is a particular kind of extortion in which the threat is to reveal information (occasionally people use it more broadly, particularly in “emotional blackmail,” which seems to just come from the same kind of sloppiness that led this community to call it “blackmail”). Calling bargaining “blackmail” sounds weird because bargaining has nothing to do with revealing information, but it is quite common to recognize a fine line between bargaining and extortion.
On topic:
Presumably the distinction between extortion and trade is in counterfactuals: in the extortion case the target is better off if they are known to be unwilling to respond to extortion, while in the trade case the target is better off if they are known to be willing to respond to trade. That seems like the most promising way to get at a formal distinction. Certainly this is tricky and we don’t yet have a good enough understanding of decision theory to make clean statements. But I’m not sure if thinking about it as being about a “default” is useful though, we can take a step forward by replacing default with “what would happen if the trader/extorter didn’t think that trade/extortion was possible.” This makes it clear that norms are mostly relevant insofar as they bear on this counterfactual.
It makes sense that an extorter would like to convince the target of extortion that things would have been much worse for the target if they weren’t expected to play ball, in exactly the same way that the extorter would like to convince the target that things will be much worse for the target if they don’t actually play ball, or that a trader who wants to sell X would like to convince people that X is more valuable.
This kind of deception seems pretty straightforward compared to the more sticky issue of trying to make logically prior commitments, and the general fact that we don’t understand very well how decision theory should work.
I’d like people not to threaten to hit me to get my stuff. I’d like people to trade with me. I’d like people who trade with me not to precommit to taking 90% of the gains from trade. I’d also like people who trade with me not to precommit to taking 10% of the gains from trade.
Hell, if someone is going to hit me anyway, I’d like the option of paying them a little to make them hit less hard.
It seems to me that counterfactual is just another word for default—ie the alternative that would have happened if they’d not decided to extort/trade.
Sure, we can use default as another name for a particular counterfactual. Note that many people around here are already asking “how should we compute logical counterfactuals?” Thinking about defaults suggests an emphasis on different considerations, like norms, which seem like the wrong place to start.
(Note also that “what would have happened if they’d not decided to extort/trade” isn’t the right counterfactual, so if that’s what “default” means then I don’t think that defaults are the important questions. We care about counterfactuals over our behavior, or over other peoples’ beliefs about our behavior.)
This is a good way of defining ‘default’, though honestly evaluating that counterfactual could prove problematic.
Do you expect that decision theory will reach a single conclusion here, or that it’ll be a more scissor-paper-stone situations (hence the ideal outcome is to minimise the loss to extorsion and maximise the gain to trade, while accepting they’re in tension)?