Julia, Luke, Scott, and Eliezer know each other very well.
Exactly three months ago, they all happened to consult their mental simulations of each other for advice on their respective problems, at the same time.
Recognizing the recursion that would result if they all simulated each other simulating each other simulating each other… etc, they instead searched over logically-consistent universe histories, grading each one by expected utility.
Since each of the four has a slightly different utility function, they of course acausally negotiated a high-utility compromise universe-history.
This compromise history involves seemingly acausal blog post attribution cycles. There’s no (in-universe, causal) reason why those effects are there. It’s just the history that got selected.
The moral of the story is: by mastering rationality and becoming Not Wrong like we are today, you can simulate your friends to arbitrary precision. This saves you anywhere between $15-100/month on cell phone bills.
I think it’s pretty obvious.
Julia, Luke, Scott, and Eliezer know each other very well.
Exactly three months ago, they all happened to consult their mental simulations of each other for advice on their respective problems, at the same time.
Recognizing the recursion that would result if they all simulated each other simulating each other simulating each other… etc, they instead searched over logically-consistent universe histories, grading each one by expected utility.
Since each of the four has a slightly different utility function, they of course acausally negotiated a high-utility compromise universe-history.
This compromise history involves seemingly acausal blog post attribution cycles. There’s no (in-universe, causal) reason why those effects are there. It’s just the history that got selected.
The moral of the story is: by mastering rationality and becoming Not Wrong like we are today, you can simulate your friends to arbitrary precision. This saves you anywhere between $15-100/month on cell phone bills.
(absolutely great use of that link)
(and brilliant point about cell phone bills)