I disagree with this modification. The first one explicitly focuses on the causal effect of the belief, but the second one focuses on the temporal successors of the belief. The first is much stronger, more useful, and more general than the second.
I prefer the modification, for some of the same reasons that you disagree with it. That is, because the modification is weaker, less general, actually doesn’t serve to convey shminux’s position and avoids conflating instrumentality considerations with the anti-realist position.
Specifically, saying this:
If I will find no diamond in the box,
I desire to believe that I will find no diamond in the box;
… does not entail any sort of claim about the distribution of the diamond in situations in which one will not happen to, or expect to be able to, personally interact with the diamond but still care whether diamond containing box are sent to some place. ie. It is technically compatible with:
If Sally will find a diamond in the box but I will never receive any message from Sally or the box after the box arrives at Sally,
I still desire to believe that Sally will find a diamond in the box.
(Or, you know, food rations and a terraforming device for her colonization mission.)
I prefer the modification, for some of the same reasons that you disagree with it. That is, because the modification is weaker, less general, actually doesn’t serve to convey shminux’s position and avoids conflating instrumentality considerations with the anti-realist position.
Specifically, saying this:
… does not entail any sort of claim about the distribution of the diamond in situations in which one will not happen to, or expect to be able to, personally interact with the diamond but still care whether diamond containing box are sent to some place. ie. It is technically compatible with:
(Or, you know, food rations and a terraforming device for her colonization mission.)