Cooperation against superrational players is only optimal if you are superrational too, or if they know how you are going to play. If you know they are superrational but they don’t know you aren’t, you should defect.
I find this confusing. Not in the sense that I don’t understand the gist of the meaning. Rather, it makes the concept of ‘superrational’ as used sound weird to me (which could perhaps be attributed to the word, not Snowyowl). In particular:
Cooperation against superrational players is only optimal if you are superrational too
What is this magical trait that I can have thing that can change what is optimal choice for me to make for a fixed externally specified utility function?
Something along the lines of “when you cooperate, your opponent is forced to cooperate too”.
The reason it is optimal is it presents no chance to be defected against, and any situation where you are defected against is worse than every situation where the opponent cooperates.
Lacking this magical trait of superrationality, the chance of being defected against is drawn back in, which dramatically harms you cooperating, making it less optimal.
I find this confusing. Not in the sense that I don’t understand the gist of the meaning. Rather, it makes the concept of ‘superrational’ as used sound weird to me (which could perhaps be attributed to the word, not Snowyowl). In particular:
What is this magical trait that I can have thing that can change what is optimal choice for me to make for a fixed externally specified utility function?
Something along the lines of “when you cooperate, your opponent is forced to cooperate too”.
The reason it is optimal is it presents no chance to be defected against, and any situation where you are defected against is worse than every situation where the opponent cooperates.
Lacking this magical trait of superrationality, the chance of being defected against is drawn back in, which dramatically harms you cooperating, making it less optimal.
That would be something that made more sense but just isn’t something that fits in that context.