Given the expected long-term value of John’s credibility about judging honesty, my guess is that “don’t lie about my judgments of honesty” is a good policy for John to adopt. Given the expected long-term value of Bob’s limited ability to manipulate African law without getting arrested, my guess is that keeping Bob out of jail a little while longer isn’t worth enough to justify violating that policy. So given the forced choice you present between (a) lie to his colleagues about Bob and Carol’s honesty, or (b) tell them the truth, I’d say John should tell his colleagues the truth.
But if John was informed by his doctor he would die the next day, should he lie then? (I think so, and I think he should maybe lie in the first case too).
(nods) If John’s long-term credibility becomes a worthless commodity (as is likely if he’s going to die), then yeah, the arguments in favor of lying get comparatively stronger. I’m interested in your reasoning in the first case, though.
He’s already changed a law in one country, which probably saved thousands of lives. If in the course of doing at least that (maybe other high-utility exploits too?) he’s gotten two court judgements, and one more should be enough to stop him. I think if he can be enabled to get away with ~50% more shenanigans before getting jailed, that will accomplish more good than an honest judge who can notice lies. There’s also Carol, who seems to be a big player for good, and I wouldn’t want the law (or just reputational effects) messing up her game.
John could maybe save his one big betrayal of the law for something else, but I doubt it will get much better than a decent chance to make vaccines legal in another African country.
Agreed that he’s changed a law, which created massive utility. (No “probably” about it; we have Word of God on this. Whether John has any way of knowing it is a different question, but what we’re asking is what John should do, not what John can know he should do, so epistemic state is irrelevant.)
And I suppose I can accept concluding that he’s likely to create another 50% of that utility before being shut down. That seems to involve ignoring granularity issues which I’m loathe to ignore, but I don’t seem to really care about that.
Mostly, your estimate of the value of having credibility as an honest judge (and to a lesser extent, the value of the class of judges having credibility as being honest) seems lower than mine, in which case it makes sense that you conclude that the disutility of risking that credibility isn’t worth as much as I do.
Given the expected long-term value of John’s credibility about judging honesty, my guess is that “don’t lie about my judgments of honesty” is a good policy for John to adopt.
Given the expected long-term value of Bob’s limited ability to manipulate African law without getting arrested, my guess is that keeping Bob out of jail a little while longer isn’t worth enough to justify violating that policy.
So given the forced choice you present between (a) lie to his colleagues about Bob and Carol’s honesty, or (b) tell them the truth, I’d say John should tell his colleagues the truth.
But if John was informed by his doctor he would die the next day, should he lie then? (I think so, and I think he should maybe lie in the first case too).
(nods) If John’s long-term credibility becomes a worthless commodity (as is likely if he’s going to die), then yeah, the arguments in favor of lying get comparatively stronger. I’m interested in your reasoning in the first case, though.
He’s already changed a law in one country, which probably saved thousands of lives. If in the course of doing at least that (maybe other high-utility exploits too?) he’s gotten two court judgements, and one more should be enough to stop him. I think if he can be enabled to get away with ~50% more shenanigans before getting jailed, that will accomplish more good than an honest judge who can notice lies. There’s also Carol, who seems to be a big player for good, and I wouldn’t want the law (or just reputational effects) messing up her game.
John could maybe save his one big betrayal of the law for something else, but I doubt it will get much better than a decent chance to make vaccines legal in another African country.
Agreed that he’s changed a law, which created massive utility. (No “probably” about it; we have Word of God on this. Whether John has any way of knowing it is a different question, but what we’re asking is what John should do, not what John can know he should do, so epistemic state is irrelevant.)
And I suppose I can accept concluding that he’s likely to create another 50% of that utility before being shut down. That seems to involve ignoring granularity issues which I’m loathe to ignore, but I don’t seem to really care about that.
Mostly, your estimate of the value of having credibility as an honest judge (and to a lesser extent, the value of the class of judges having credibility as being honest) seems lower than mine, in which case it makes sense that you conclude that the disutility of risking that credibility isn’t worth as much as I do.