When I said “nothing of value is actually being saved”, I was referring to these facts:
Before the pills: no-one dies.
Best possible outcome: no-one dies.
Everyone is people, and the best possible outcome is merely the status quo. No value has been created, it has merely been risked for no reason.
A problem with the scenario is that it is not isomorphic to any real situation, and people tend to respond according to what it emotionally feels like, which is collective action (yay!) vs. individual action (boo!). The nearest real-world version I can think of is where there is an improvement on the status quo that can only be achieved if a large number of people unite, but smaller numbers of people striving for it will be penalised. For example, overthrowing an authoritarian regime. The obstacle there is usually lack of common knowledge of what people want and coordination on when it is to happen, which the regime tries to prevent.
But in the original example, everyone runs as fast as they can to stay in the same place.
“Before the pills” is not a valid reference point, because “not taking pills at all” is not an option in original dilemma.
Default state here is “everybody uses bad decision theory and bunch of people dies”.
When I said “nothing of value is actually being saved”, I was referring to these facts:
Before the pills: no-one dies.
Best possible outcome: no-one dies.
Everyone is people, and the best possible outcome is merely the status quo. No value has been created, it has merely been risked for no reason.
A problem with the scenario is that it is not isomorphic to any real situation, and people tend to respond according to what it emotionally feels like, which is collective action (yay!) vs. individual action (boo!). The nearest real-world version I can think of is where there is an improvement on the status quo that can only be achieved if a large number of people unite, but smaller numbers of people striving for it will be penalised. For example, overthrowing an authoritarian regime. The obstacle there is usually lack of common knowledge of what people want and coordination on when it is to happen, which the regime tries to prevent.
But in the original example, everyone runs as fast as they can to stay in the same place.
“Before the pills” is not a valid reference point, because “not taking pills at all” is not an option in original dilemma. Default state here is “everybody uses bad decision theory and bunch of people dies”.
Whichever decision you think is the bad one, if everyone does it then everyone lives.
There are plenty of bad decisions, like “randomize” or “do whatever feel like it”.