you see that your choice on voting is probably correlated with that of many other people.
I’ve heard this asserted on a couple of occasions (most memorably in Three Worlds Collide) and have a question about it. The case as I understand it is that my choices are correlated with others who have similar minds, so I should choose as if choosing for everyone. I don’t really object to that, but it seems to me that the set of “similar minds” is quite small. Is my appropriate reference class the set of people who notice and act upon this theoretical correlation? Isn’t the number of people who do so miniscule, to the point that even if the theory is correct, it still won’t have a noticeable impact?
The number of people who have heard of UDT or Hoftstadter’s super-rationality is miniscule, but informal versions, like “What if everyone failed to vote?” are common. Whether they actually drive action is a difficult question.
I’ve heard this asserted on a couple of occasions (most memorably in Three Worlds Collide) and have a question about it. The case as I understand it is that my choices are correlated with others who have similar minds, so I should choose as if choosing for everyone. I don’t really object to that, but it seems to me that the set of “similar minds” is quite small. Is my appropriate reference class the set of people who notice and act upon this theoretical correlation? Isn’t the number of people who do so miniscule, to the point that even if the theory is correct, it still won’t have a noticeable impact?
The number of people who have heard of UDT or Hoftstadter’s super-rationality is miniscule, but informal versions, like “What if everyone failed to vote?” are common. Whether they actually drive action is a difficult question.