Of those, I’m inclined to place the value of losses for everything but legal costs as zero or near-zero. Someone who cares about their reputation in this respect is not going to go into this in the first place. Someone with a high opportunity cost, likewise. The fact that Helm tried this at all means either he was wildly irrational and undeterrable, or his value on his reputation was nil and his opportunity costs low.
Posit: He was unwell in a way that, durably, prevented him from working at anywhere near his former capacity. This is not particularly unlikely on priors. Severely depressed, something like that. Then, as first-order consequences:
His professional reputation is not worth very much to him. All portions of it that came from skill, he cannot maintain, and they will soon be gone regardless. His social reputation with startup people will soon follow it.
His opportunity cost is much lower than you’d otherwise expect.
Second-order consequence: If legal fees didn’t devour all his payout, this probably came out positive for him, and in expectation (heavy-tailed distribution) better than that.
And the fact that he bothered with it should be a large update in favor of this assumption. It might not push it fully to ‘more likely than not’ but I think it probably does.
Of those, I’m inclined to place the value of losses for everything but legal costs as zero or near-zero.
I… have no idea why you would do that. Of course the primary deterrent you have in almost any circumstance like this is loss of time and effort and reputation. You can’t be immune to anyone squeezing out pennies on the dollar from you. Practically every business out there is “exploitable” if you are willing to put in effort at this level of criminality and cost to yourself.
in expectation (heavy-tailed distribution)
This doesn’t make any sense. Him getting a payout below his break-even point is the topic at discussion. MIRI was not pursuing a stochastic policy that could have somehow caused him to get 10x the payout.
And the fact that he bothered with it should be a large update in favor of this assumption
Literally one of your counter-arguments is “he was unwell in a way that prevented him from working at anywhere near his former capacity” and “severely depressed, something like that”. I don’t see any reason to assume that Louie Helm was pursuing a rational strategy, indeed, I see enormous reasons to assume the opposite.
(Revisiting when my thoughts percolated into more coherent words:) You don’t get to live in the convenient world where most potential blackmailers are people with good alternative options. It’s always going to be an adversarial sample; the people who are most likely to attempt blackmail are those with the worst alternatives and the lowest costs; the ones who have little or no reputation to lose, and poor returns on their effort if it’s directed in other directions. If you can’t deter someone with minimal reputation and low value of their time from blackmailing you, your only defense against blackmail is to prevent anyone meeting that description from having information they could use to blackmail you.
I don’t see any reason to assume that Louie Helm was pursuing a rational strategy, indeed, I see enormous reasons to assume the opposite.
Do you not see how that would also reinforce my point? I don’t even know how to explain that, it’s too obvious to me. (EDIT: I thought of how to explain it and placed it in this new sibling comment.)
MIRI was not pursuing a stochastic policy that could have somehow caused him to get 10x the payout.
Reality was. He didn’t know how much money was available to be extorted, and if it was a lot, it could be quite a lot; heavy-tailed distribution.
Of those, I’m inclined to place the value of losses for everything but legal costs as zero or near-zero. Someone who cares about their reputation in this respect is not going to go into this in the first place. Someone with a high opportunity cost, likewise. The fact that Helm tried this at all means either he was wildly irrational and undeterrable, or his value on his reputation was nil and his opportunity costs low.
Posit: He was unwell in a way that, durably, prevented him from working at anywhere near his former capacity. This is not particularly unlikely on priors. Severely depressed, something like that. Then, as first-order consequences:
His professional reputation is not worth very much to him. All portions of it that came from skill, he cannot maintain, and they will soon be gone regardless. His social reputation with startup people will soon follow it.
His opportunity cost is much lower than you’d otherwise expect.
Second-order consequence: If legal fees didn’t devour all his payout, this probably came out positive for him, and in expectation (heavy-tailed distribution) better than that.
And the fact that he bothered with it should be a large update in favor of this assumption. It might not push it fully to ‘more likely than not’ but I think it probably does.
I… have no idea why you would do that. Of course the primary deterrent you have in almost any circumstance like this is loss of time and effort and reputation. You can’t be immune to anyone squeezing out pennies on the dollar from you. Practically every business out there is “exploitable” if you are willing to put in effort at this level of criminality and cost to yourself.
This doesn’t make any sense. Him getting a payout below his break-even point is the topic at discussion. MIRI was not pursuing a stochastic policy that could have somehow caused him to get 10x the payout.
Literally one of your counter-arguments is “he was unwell in a way that prevented him from working at anywhere near his former capacity” and “severely depressed, something like that”. I don’t see any reason to assume that Louie Helm was pursuing a rational strategy, indeed, I see enormous reasons to assume the opposite.
(Revisiting when my thoughts percolated into more coherent words:) You don’t get to live in the convenient world where most potential blackmailers are people with good alternative options. It’s always going to be an adversarial sample; the people who are most likely to attempt blackmail are those with the worst alternatives and the lowest costs; the ones who have little or no reputation to lose, and poor returns on their effort if it’s directed in other directions. If you can’t deter someone with minimal reputation and low value of their time from blackmailing you, your only defense against blackmail is to prevent anyone meeting that description from having information they could use to blackmail you.
Do you not see how that would also reinforce my point? I don’t even know how to explain that, it’s too obvious to me. (EDIT: I thought of how to explain it and placed it in this new sibling comment.)
Reality was. He didn’t know how much money was available to be extorted, and if it was a lot, it could be quite a lot; heavy-tailed distribution.
This honestly feels like it’s getting silly. I am bowing out.