I agree raw power (including intelligence) is very useful and perhaps generally more desireable than bargaining power etc. But that doesn’t undermine the commitment races problem; agents with the ability to make commitments might still choose to do so in various ways and for various reasons, and there’s general pressure (collective action problem style) for them to do it earlier while they are stupider, so there’s a socially-suboptimal amount of risk being taken.
I agree that on Earth there might be a sort of unipolar takeoff where power is sufficiently imbalanced and credibility sufficiently difficult to obtain and “direct methods” easier to employ, that this sort of game theory and bargaining stuff doesn’t matter much. But even in that case there’s acausal stuff to worry about, as you point out.
I agree raw power (including intelligence) is very useful and perhaps generally more desireable than bargaining power etc. But that doesn’t undermine the commitment races problem; agents with the ability to make commitments might still choose to do so in various ways and for various reasons, and there’s general pressure (collective action problem style) for them to do it earlier while they are stupider, so there’s a socially-suboptimal amount of risk being taken.
I agree that on Earth there might be a sort of unipolar takeoff where power is sufficiently imbalanced and credibility sufficiently difficult to obtain and “direct methods” easier to employ, that this sort of game theory and bargaining stuff doesn’t matter much. But even in that case there’s acausal stuff to worry about, as you point out.