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0 pointsmannykannot7mo ago0 comments

It's a fair question, but would you trust them equally in an unanticipated crisis, where doing the right thing might be costly in hard-to-predict ways?

0 comments

justbees7mo ago

If the two are indistinguishable from an outsider's perspective how would you know which one to trust?

vacuity7mo ago

Yes, then there is no way to elevate Bob above Alice, but in practice I think the assumption of external indistinguishability is too strong, and even the suspicion that Alice is sketchy (i.e. without hard proof) is meaningful.

mannykannotOP7mo ago

You can phrase the same question thus: which set of traits is more likely to lead a person to stay true to prior form in a crisis?

some_furry7mo ago

The trouble is, you can think you're dealing with a Bob, but you're actually dealing with an Alice, even after enduring multiple crises that didn't trigger their specific type of badness.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/03/how-i-...

But as fun as this line of thinking is, my initial charitable post was only asking for a kind of "superficial" indistinguishability. As long as you don't think about it too hard, y'know?

shandor7mo ago

Which in the end is precisely the reason why we want to understand the intentions behind the actions, right?

1 more reply

some_furry7mo ago

This sounds like a job for cryptography!

(No, it doesn't, actually.)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

justbees7mo ago

If the two are indistinguishable from an outsider's perspective how would you know which one to trust?

vacuity7mo ago

mannykannotOP7mo ago

You can phrase the same question thus: which set of traits is more likely to lead a person to stay true to prior form in a crisis?

some_furry7mo ago

The trouble is, you can think you're dealing with a Bob, but you're actually dealing with an Alice, even after enduring multiple crises that didn't trigger their specific type of badness.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/03/how-i-...

But as fun as this line of thinking is, my initial charitable post was only asking for a kind of "superficial" indistinguishability. As long as you don't think about it too hard, y'know?

shandor7mo ago

Which in the end is precisely the reason why we want to understand the intentions behind the actions, right?

1 more reply

some_furry7mo ago

This sounds like a job for cryptography!

(No, it doesn't, actually.)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse