Well, the situation that the post was discussing is not Newcomb’s problem, it’s counterfactual mugging, so how about:
The CEO of your employer Omegacorp schedules a meeting with you. When you enter, there is a coin showing tails in front of him. He tells you that as you were outside his office, he flipped this coin. If it came up heads, he would triple your salary, but if it came up tails he would ask you to take a 10% cut in your pay. Now, he says, arbitrary changes in your pay, even for the better, can’t happen without your approval. Given that you desire money, you clearly want to refuse the pay cut. He notes that you would have accepted either outcome if you’d been given a choice to take the bet before the coin flipped, and that the only reason he didn’t let you in the office to watch the flip (or pre-commit to agreeing) was that company regulations prohibit gambling with employees salaries.
In this case you ought to consider the possibility you are dreaming or insane. Response 3 makes a lot of sense here, even down to the Reddit and LessWrong parts.
Well, the situation that the post was discussing is not Newcomb’s problem, it’s counterfactual mugging, so how about:
The CEO of your employer Omegacorp schedules a meeting with you. When you enter, there is a coin showing tails in front of him. He tells you that as you were outside his office, he flipped this coin. If it came up heads, he would triple your salary, but if it came up tails he would ask you to take a 10% cut in your pay. Now, he says, arbitrary changes in your pay, even for the better, can’t happen without your approval. Given that you desire money, you clearly want to refuse the pay cut. He notes that you would have accepted either outcome if you’d been given a choice to take the bet before the coin flipped, and that the only reason he didn’t let you in the office to watch the flip (or pre-commit to agreeing) was that company regulations prohibit gambling with employees salaries.
In this case you ought to consider the possibility you are dreaming or insane. Response 3 makes a lot of sense here, even down to the Reddit and LessWrong parts.
Before that I’d consider the possibility that the CEO is not entirely sound.
Has anyone actually attempted a counterfactual mugging at a LessWrong meetup?