Reasoning through the consequences of removing all virtues but the chosen one, an inability to avoid actions that lead to noticeable increase that civilization was destroyed tended to outweigh the others in expected negatives, so I picked that. It’s also traditional, and is the one that makes any sense for the day to be about, though that wasn’t what I was asked. I also thought through how the poll link might be a red button in some way but didn’t see it.
I was quite puzzled by the second message that my choice to maintain the traditional and expected value for the site was in the minority. That did not fit with my model of basically any subset of the LessWrong community. My past experience with Petrov Day celebrations is that rash action tends not to be the thing anyone wants you to do, so I read the message trying to figure out what rash action I was being poked to do, noted the ‘unilateralism’ parameter, wondered if I was in fact ‘supposed to’ take unilateral action to not destroy civilization, figured that if that was the case someone else would do it here but it probably meant it was bad, and left it alone. And at some point probably processed that there weren’t particular negative stakes to not choosing a value, and continued leaving it alone.
This one made sense to be a red button in disguise, partly because I had a strong probability the message was false, partly because it was strange, and partly because it’s a day I expect a red button. So I avoided it.
Reasoning through the consequences of removing all virtues but the chosen one, an inability to avoid actions that lead to noticeable increase that civilization was destroyed tended to outweigh the others in expected negatives, so I picked that. It’s also traditional, and is the one that makes any sense for the day to be about, though that wasn’t what I was asked. I also thought through how the poll link might be a red button in some way but didn’t see it.
I was quite puzzled by the second message that my choice to maintain the traditional and expected value for the site was in the minority. That did not fit with my model of basically any subset of the LessWrong community. My past experience with Petrov Day celebrations is that rash action tends not to be the thing anyone wants you to do, so I read the message trying to figure out what rash action I was being poked to do, noted the ‘unilateralism’ parameter, wondered if I was in fact ‘supposed to’ take unilateral action to not destroy civilization, figured that if that was the case someone else would do it here but it probably meant it was bad, and left it alone. And at some point probably processed that there weren’t particular negative stakes to not choosing a value, and continued leaving it alone.
This one made sense to be a red button in disguise, partly because I had a strong probability the message was false, partly because it was strange, and partly because it’s a day I expect a red button. So I avoided it.