It’s tempting to say that, but I think pallas actually meant what he wrote. Basically, hitting “not sim” gets you a guaranteed 0.9 utility. Hitting “sim” gets you about 0.2 utility, getting closer as the number of copies increases. Even though each person strictly prefers “sim” to “not-sim,” and a CDT agent would choose sim, it appears that choosing “not-sim” gets you more expected utility.
Edit: not-sim has higher expected utility for an entirely selfish agent who does not know whether he is simulated or not, because his choice affects not only his utility payout, but also acasually affects his state of simulation. Of course, this depends on my interpretation of anthropics.
Oh, I see. Nice. Preferring “not sim” in this case feels rather like falling victim to Simpson’s paradox, but I’m not at all sure that’s not just a mistake on my part.
It’s tempting to say that, but I think pallas actually meant what he wrote. Basically, hitting “not sim” gets you a guaranteed 0.9 utility. Hitting “sim” gets you about 0.2 utility, getting closer as the number of copies increases. Even though each person strictly prefers “sim” to “not-sim,” and a CDT agent would choose sim, it appears that choosing “not-sim” gets you more expected utility.
Edit: not-sim has higher expected utility for an entirely selfish agent who does not know whether he is simulated or not, because his choice affects not only his utility payout, but also acasually affects his state of simulation. Of course, this depends on my interpretation of anthropics.
Oh, I see. Nice. Preferring “not sim” in this case feels rather like falling victim to Simpson’s paradox, but I’m not at all sure that’s not just a mistake on my part.
Thanks for the explanation. I had no idea what was actually going on here.