That’s the more interesting topic, and it came up when I visited the NYC LW crew last week.
My take is that, if TDT really is superior to other decision theories, then a society of majority-TDTers should not lose out to “mindless drone decision theorists” (MDDTers) simply by all individually refusing to vote, while the MDDTers vote for stupid policies in unision.
The TDTers would, rather, recognize the correlation between their decisions, and reason that their own decision, in the relevant sense, sets the output of the other TDTers, so they have to count the benefit of voting as being more than just “my favored policies +1 vote”. I conclude that a TDTer would decide to vote, reasoning something like “If I deem it optimal to vote, so do decision makers similar to me.”
The others there disagreed that TDTers would vote in such an instance, claiming that other methods of influencing the outcome exceed the effectiveness of voting in all situations.
The others there disagreed that TDTers would vote in such an instance, claiming that other methods of influencing the outcome exceed the effectiveness of voting in all situations.
This seems to suggest that a society of TDTers would quickly abandon democracy. What form of government would they move to?
Were you not talking about a society of TDTers that didn’t think it was worth voting? Or were you allowing for a sufficient number of irrational nuts in the system for the democratic process to be useful or necessary even though the majority (and all the rational people) do not use it?
Well, the particular scenario I had in mind was a democratic one (where the MDDTers believe in democracy), and the eligible TDTers could win every election if they (nearly) all voted, and where the MDDTers vote in unison for stupid policies. And the questions is whether the TDT algorithm outputs “vote”; their decision not to vote is not an assumption (though perhaps they agree that, at least per CDT rules, voting is pointless).
If you’re asking what the proposed non-voting TDT-compliant alternative is, and if it would involve keeping a democratic system, then I’ll say what I should have earlier: I don’t know—that’s something I was trying to find out from those who disagreed with me. One of them said that any amount of effort spent voting would be better spent propagandizing, so there is no margin where the TDTer deems voting optimal.
I was skeptical: once you accept that TDTers “naturally” make correlated decisions (in this type of problem), your vote “controls” something much more effective (the decision of a majority of voters). Then, even under generous assumptions about alternate uses of your voting effort, and aggregating this across all TDTers, and recognizing the mind-shields that various levels of drones put up, it’s not clear why propagandizing is better.
To the extent that the drones are maximally mindless, your propaganda does nothing to change their minds, either on the object level (this election) or meta level (which political system is best). To the extent that the drones are “reasonable”, a certain fraction of their votes will go toward the TDT-favored policies anyway, further reducing the threshold TDTers have to meet to get good policies.
I was skeptical: once you accept that TDTers “naturally” make correlated decisions (in this type of problem), your vote “controls” something much more effective (the decision of a majority of voters). Then, even under generous assumptions about alternate uses of your voting effort, and aggregating this across all TDTers, and recognizing the mind-shields that various levels of drones put up, it’s not clear why propagandizing is better.
That is approximately my thinking too.
To the extent that the drones are maximally mindless, your propaganda does nothing to change their minds, either on the object level (this election) or meta level (which political system is best). To the extent that the drones are “reasonable”, a certain fraction of their votes will go toward the TDT-favored policies anyway, further reducing the threshold TDTers have to meet to get good policies.
I suppose this depends just how open minded the TDTers are when it comes to considering alternative ways to enforce their influence over policy in the case of pointless propaganda ;)
This analysis of consequences of your decisions doesn’t just say that other people who perform similar analysis are influenced by your decision. People who make their decisions differently can be (seen as) influenced as well.
That’s the more interesting topic, and it came up when I visited the NYC LW crew last week.
My take is that, if TDT really is superior to other decision theories, then a society of majority-TDTers should not lose out to “mindless drone decision theorists” (MDDTers) simply by all individually refusing to vote, while the MDDTers vote for stupid policies in unision.
The TDTers would, rather, recognize the correlation between their decisions, and reason that their own decision, in the relevant sense, sets the output of the other TDTers, so they have to count the benefit of voting as being more than just “my favored policies +1 vote”. I conclude that a TDTer would decide to vote, reasoning something like “If I deem it optimal to vote, so do decision makers similar to me.”
The others there disagreed that TDTers would vote in such an instance, claiming that other methods of influencing the outcome exceed the effectiveness of voting in all situations.
This seems to suggest that a society of TDTers would quickly abandon democracy. What form of government would they move to?
Elaborate on your reasoning there.
Were you not talking about a society of TDTers that didn’t think it was worth voting? Or were you allowing for a sufficient number of irrational nuts in the system for the democratic process to be useful or necessary even though the majority (and all the rational people) do not use it?
Well, the particular scenario I had in mind was a democratic one (where the MDDTers believe in democracy), and the eligible TDTers could win every election if they (nearly) all voted, and where the MDDTers vote in unison for stupid policies. And the questions is whether the TDT algorithm outputs “vote”; their decision not to vote is not an assumption (though perhaps they agree that, at least per CDT rules, voting is pointless).
If you’re asking what the proposed non-voting TDT-compliant alternative is, and if it would involve keeping a democratic system, then I’ll say what I should have earlier: I don’t know—that’s something I was trying to find out from those who disagreed with me. One of them said that any amount of effort spent voting would be better spent propagandizing, so there is no margin where the TDTer deems voting optimal.
I was skeptical: once you accept that TDTers “naturally” make correlated decisions (in this type of problem), your vote “controls” something much more effective (the decision of a majority of voters). Then, even under generous assumptions about alternate uses of your voting effort, and aggregating this across all TDTers, and recognizing the mind-shields that various levels of drones put up, it’s not clear why propagandizing is better.
To the extent that the drones are maximally mindless, your propaganda does nothing to change their minds, either on the object level (this election) or meta level (which political system is best). To the extent that the drones are “reasonable”, a certain fraction of their votes will go toward the TDT-favored policies anyway, further reducing the threshold TDTers have to meet to get good policies.
That is approximately my thinking too.
I suppose this depends just how open minded the TDTers are when it comes to considering alternative ways to enforce their influence over policy in the case of pointless propaganda ;)
This analysis of consequences of your decisions doesn’t just say that other people who perform similar analysis are influenced by your decision. People who make their decisions differently can be (seen as) influenced as well.