An obvious question which I’m keen to hear people’s thoughts on—does MAD work here? Specifically, does it make sense for the EA forum users with launch codes to commit to a retaliatory attack? The obvious case for it is deterrence. The obvious counterarguments are that the Forum could go down for a reason other than a strike from LessWrong, and that once the Forum is down, it doesn’t help us to take down LW (though this type of situation might be regular enough that future credibility makes it worth it)
Though of course it would be really bad for us to have to take down LW, and we really don’t want to. And I imagine most of us trust the 100 LW users with codes not to use them :)
The question is whether precommitment would actually change behavior. In this case, anyone shutting down either site is effectively playing nihilist, and doesn’t care, so it shouldn’t.
In fact, if it does anything, it would be destabilizing—if “they” commit to pushing the button if “we” do, they are saying they aren’t committed to minimizing damage overall, which should make us question whether we’re actually on the same side. (And this is a large part of why MAD only works if you are both selfish, and scared of losing.)
Furthermore, if there was a user who wanted to take down LW/EA for fun, a precommitment to MAD would only help that user take down an additional site.
Everyone cares about something, so maybe we should precommit to something more .. deterring? It should likely be something that’s not really bad, but still somewhat uncomfortable for the person to experience. (I realize that going down this path of thinking might produce actual outside-game harm)
Er.. I’m reading Khorton’s post now, and apparently people are viewing this game/event thing very differently, so I think with that meta-uncertainty I am unwilling to ruthlessly strategize.
Don’t forget that this is iterated, though. In order to save the site from going down a year from now, we might want to follow through on a tit-for-tat strategy this year.
I’m not certain that this is the correct play, but it is an important distinction from the usual MAD theorizing.
Surely we don’t as anyone bringing down a site next year would still be some sort of reckless nihilist who just doesn’t care. So tit-for-tat this year wouldn’t actually change anything?
I know we’re trying to remember when the US and USSR had their weapons pointed at each other but it feels more like the North and South islands of New Zealand are trying to decide whether to nuke each other!
Edit: Not even something so violent—just temporarily inconvenience each other
An obvious question which I’m keen to hear people’s thoughts on—does MAD work here? Specifically, does it make sense for the EA forum users with launch codes to commit to a retaliatory attack? The obvious case for it is deterrence. The obvious counterarguments are that the Forum could go down for a reason other than a strike from LessWrong, and that once the Forum is down, it doesn’t help us to take down LW (though this type of situation might be regular enough that future credibility makes it worth it)
Though of course it would be really bad for us to have to take down LW, and we really don’t want to. And I imagine most of us trust the 100 LW users with codes not to use them :)
The question is whether precommitment would actually change behavior. In this case, anyone shutting down either site is effectively playing nihilist, and doesn’t care, so it shouldn’t.
In fact, if it does anything, it would be destabilizing—if “they” commit to pushing the button if “we” do, they are saying they aren’t committed to minimizing damage overall, which should make us question whether we’re actually on the same side. (And this is a large part of why MAD only works if you are both selfish, and scared of losing.)
Furthermore, if there was a user who wanted to take down LW/EA for fun, a precommitment to MAD would only help that user take down an additional site.
Everyone cares about something, so maybe we should precommit to something more .. deterring? It should likely be something that’s not really bad, but still somewhat uncomfortable for the person to experience. (I realize that going down this path of thinking might produce actual outside-game harm)
Er.. I’m reading Khorton’s post now, and apparently people are viewing this game/event thing very differently, so I think with that meta-uncertainty I am unwilling to ruthlessly strategize.
Don’t forget that this is iterated, though. In order to save the site from going down a year from now, we might want to follow through on a tit-for-tat strategy this year.
I’m not certain that this is the correct play, but it is an important distinction from the usual MAD theorizing.
Surely we don’t as anyone bringing down a site next year would still be some sort of reckless nihilist who just doesn’t care. So tit-for-tat this year wouldn’t actually change anything?
Thanks - I meant to point out that it wasn’t definitively single-shot, unlike actual, you know, destruction.
I know we’re trying to remember when the US and USSR had their weapons pointed at each other but it feels more like the North and South islands of New Zealand are trying to decide whether to nuke each other!
Edit: Not even something so violent—just temporarily inconvenience each other