If I’d been composing this for the Less Wrong crowd, I’d have also noted that the decisions of people similar to you should be correlated, which adds another multiplier to the effectiveness of voting. I might like I bumper sticker that says “I’m a timeless decision theorist, therefore I vote!”)
I want one that says “I know as many Timeless Decision Theorists who would vote for the other guy as for my guy, therefore none of us vote even though voting would cause our preferences to be maximised!”
ie. “Timeless” considerations go both ways here (and elsewhere), not just towards the option that we incidentally associate with ‘virtue’.
I want one that says “I know as many Timeless Decision Theorists who would vote for the other guy as for my guy, therefore none of us vote even though voting would cause our preferences to be maximised!”
That would be a surprising discovery to make, since people algorithmically similar to you will tend to be similar in their who-to-vote-for decisions.
Explicit superrationality/Kantian reasoners are probably significantly different from other humans, e.g. probably smarter and more educated, for example. I would like to politicians of all parties notice that the electorate is more educated (and pitch their policies accordingly), to have primaries favor more sane brands of each party, and have ballot initiatives resolved in favor of global cooperation of TDTers rather than narrow rent-seeking coalitions.
You don’t need the “similar minds” to be explicit super-rationality reasoners; it suffices that they have a similar input/output mapping, so your decisions are logically coupled to someone who makes the same kind of decisions but because of “fear of hellfire”.
That’s a good point; however, there could be some elections in which the balance of opinion is different between TDT thinkers and others. (In which case, of course, they would optimize in order to have the same aggregate effect as otherwise, while allowing some TDT agents to forgo voting.)
there could be some elections in which the balance of opinion is different between TDT thinkers and others
Before the vote, how do they know, with enough accuracy for anything but a 100% turn-out to work? Polls? But by the same argument, what TDT-ers will take the time to respond to a poll?
That’s a good point; however, there could be some elections in which the balance of opinion is different between TDT thinkers and others. (In which case, of course, they would optimize in order to have the same aggregate effect as otherwise, while allowing some TDT agents to forgo voting.)
Exactly. And in the extreme case only one person would attend the poll booth (from the team that were going to win anyway) and everyone else would stay home.
I want one that says “I know as many Timeless Decision Theorists who would vote for the other guy as for my guy, therefore none of us vote even though voting would cause our preferences to be maximised!”
But do each of those Timeless Decision Theorists know precisely the same set of Timeless Decision Theorists as you do?
Um, no. Since one of the TDTists is yourself, and you already know your set of acquaintances.
The grandparent seems correct and I don’t see why “Um, no” is supposed to follow from the parent. It is possible that the amount of communication required to reach an agreement with Eugine would be too much to fit even on my rather verbose bumper sticker.
The grandparent seems correct and I don’t see why “Um, no” is supposed to follow from the parent.
It might be easier to see if you think of the case when you know only one other TDTist and he would vote for the other guy. However, you’re not sure how many other TDTists he knows.
I want one that says “I know as many Timeless Decision Theorists who would vote for the other guy as for my guy, therefore none of us vote even though voting would cause our preferences to be maximised!”
ie. “Timeless” considerations go both ways here (and elsewhere), not just towards the option that we incidentally associate with ‘virtue’.
That would be a surprising discovery to make, since people algorithmically similar to you will tend to be similar in their who-to-vote-for decisions.
Explicit superrationality/Kantian reasoners are probably significantly different from other humans, e.g. probably smarter and more educated, for example. I would like to politicians of all parties notice that the electorate is more educated (and pitch their policies accordingly), to have primaries favor more sane brands of each party, and have ballot initiatives resolved in favor of global cooperation of TDTers rather than narrow rent-seeking coalitions.
You don’t need the “similar minds” to be explicit super-rationality reasoners; it suffices that they have a similar input/output mapping, so your decisions are logically coupled to someone who makes the same kind of decisions but because of “fear of hellfire”.
That’s a good point; however, there could be some elections in which the balance of opinion is different between TDT thinkers and others. (In which case, of course, they would optimize in order to have the same aggregate effect as otherwise, while allowing some TDT agents to forgo voting.)
Before the vote, how do they know, with enough accuracy for anything but a 100% turn-out to work? Polls? But by the same argument, what TDT-ers will take the time to respond to a poll?
Exactly. And in the extreme case only one person would attend the poll booth (from the team that were going to win anyway) and everyone else would stay home.
But do each of those Timeless Decision Theorists know precisely the same set of Timeless Decision Theorists as you do?
They don’t need to. I just need to expect the political biases of the TDTists the others know to be just as likely to in one direction as the other.
Um, no. Since one of the TDTists is yourself, and you already know your set of acquaintances.
The grandparent seems correct and I don’t see why “Um, no” is supposed to follow from the parent. It is possible that the amount of communication required to reach an agreement with Eugine would be too much to fit even on my rather verbose bumper sticker.
It might be easier to see if you think of the case when you know only one other TDTist and he would vote for the other guy. However, you’re not sure how many other TDTists he knows.