sansampersamp
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User ID: 751
Alice's bets are neutral EV at odds of 2:1, corresponding to p*=1/3 for a fair coin, yes. Unless I am missing something this is directly analogous to stating that Alice has a credence that the coin flip came up heads of 1/3. Therefore if Alice is directed to communicate their credence to Bob, they would communicate 1/3 (which Bob would understand to be subject to Alice's predetermined pattern of exposure and handle appropriately to derive their credence of heads at 2/3).
The ambiguity only arises if "credence" is allowed to mean something other than Alice's implied probability from her 0-EV betting odds. As I said, not across the formal literature here but that doesn't seem to be the case to me.
edit: perhaps the different probabilities can be better compared if the (fair) coin is flipped on the Sunday before either are put to sleep, and they provide their credence at that point as well. Alice would say: Today I have a credence that the coin came up heads of 1/2. Tomorrow, on waking, I will have a credence that it came up heads of 1/3. Bob will have a credence it came up heads of 2/3. This is no more unusual, mathematically, than if we were to flip the coin today, and ask me tomorrow by mail, if a result of tails today meant you opted for a mail service that was exactly twice as reliable than the service you'd have chosen if the result was heads. Equivalently, my response on receiving the question would be 1/3 and I could pre-register that response with you now.
Is there a definition here of "credence the coin flip came up heads" that is not equivalent to "what is the p*, such that you would bet the coin flip came up heads if given odds (1-p*)/p* or greater"?
sansampersamp
1mo ago
I think if Alice was specifically directed to input her "credence that the coin flip came up heads" then it's not really ambiguous if everyone is on the same page, as it were. I agree that it's not correct to characterise Alice (or Bob) waking as 'gaining' information, perhaps that's just some Bayesian baggage from Monty Hall or the way the notation is typically used. Alice is fully able to preregister her bets before she falls asleep the first time.
Alice has a computer terminal in her room, and the only thing she can do with this computer terminal3 is input into it a single number, her "credence that the coin flip came up heads".
..
I contend that it is obvious that in Variant 1, Alice should still tell Bob that the probability of the coin flip is p, even though she is going to personally bet on heads with probability (1-p)/(p+1). That is, if p=1/2, Alice should bet heads with probability 1/3, but tell Bob that the probability of the coin flip is 1/2.
Forgive me for not being initiated in the lit behind this question, but I'm not following why in variant 1, if Bob is expecting the message to denote Alice's credence for heads and they have mutually consistent methods for deriving it, i.e. (1-p)/(p+1), why Alice would provide anything other than her true credence (which is acknowledged to be invariant based on which wake/day they are in).
i.e.
- Alice wakes, knows p_tails, derives her P(H|wake) as (1-p)/(p+1), sends it to the computer
- Bob wakes, sees Alice's P(H|wake) on the computer. He knows how he'd derive it from p if he were Alice, so he reverses the calculation to get the coin weighting p_tails
- Bob uses the p_tails to derive his own credence for heads (2 wakes per head, heads results at 1-p), i.e. 2(1-p)/(2-p)
For Bob to benefit from being told p_tails instead of Alice's P(H|wake), then Bob must either not be aware that Alice's exposure setup is an inversion of his own, or otherwise believe that Alice will communicate 'true' p_tails instead of her P(H|wake), neither of which seems apparent from the set-up. If Bob expects Alice to input her actual credence and he knows the experiment setup, there's no need for Alice to strategically misreport.
sansampersamp
2mo ago
Emily Dickinson
sansampersamp
6mo ago
The DNC pursuing a perception of being a 'neutral leadership institution' is frequently at ends with its actual institutional purpose: getting democrats elected.
sansampersamp
8mo ago
Australia is more urban and more educated than the US, with a generally high-skill immigration mix. If coalition wants to abandon previously safe wealthy inner-urban seats over cultural differences to the teals, they'll need to make them up elsewhere, and there's not enough rural or exurban seats to do that.
sansampersamp
8mo ago
They use the GTAP model.
They have some notes in the appendix of an earlier version
sansampersamp
8mo ago
I'm not sure why the US' dominating posture in trade IP keeps being cited as Marvel-branded underwear and not, like, biologics. Pharma is much pointier from a trade partner's perspective.
sansampersamp
8mo ago
Musk also is beginning to show some daylight between himself and the Trump admin on trade (in typical manner)
sansampersamp
8mo ago
China's pledge to stop respecting American IP
This is, as far as I can tell, made up
sansampersamp
8mo ago
I would reduce tariffs on imports to 0
whoever we get a bunch of non-American stuff from and increase tariffs on them
You may be qualified to work in this admin (or the very least, a plum job at American Compass)
sansampersamp
8mo ago
Other way round: your exports are more competitive if priced in a weaker currency. A weaker currency, i.e. a dollar buying less stuff, is definitionally inflation however if the only way you can get there via expansions in the money supply. Tariffs in the first order effect strengthen the dollar (lower imports, less demand for foreign currencies from the US), but the economic havoc will balance that in the second order by lowering interest rates lowering USD yields relative to other currencies and, well, risking inflation.
sansampersamp
9mo ago
The hilariously absurd thing is that now that congress has given the exec that power, they have to overcome a veto to get it back.
Same thing happened in 2019 when he couldn't get wall funding from congress, so instead raided DoD (proclamation 9844). Congress tried to reassert spending powers with house joint resolution 46. That passed both house and senate but Trump just vetoed it lmao
Prior comment is assuming a fair coin, so p_tails=0.5, but I've clarified to specify p* as Alice's credence upon waking that the coin result was heads.
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