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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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The premise nowhere claims that small children make their own choices.

What it says is that "everyone responding chooses." If small children are responding, then they are the ones to choose.

I'll grant that it's not 100% perfectly clear on this point, nor does it explicitly state that coordination is not allowed, but both things are heavily implied. If you think the fact that it doesn't state "coordination is not allowed" means coordination is allowed, then that's a different premise from the commonly understood one, and we should be discussing methods of coordination rather than the game theory of the premise as stated.

I reject this premise entirely.

...

YOU'RE MODIFYING THE PREMISE REEE

Link me to one other person, here or on Twitter, who thinks the premise means people can coordinate, and I'll grant that you're not totally off-base here. Still, it's pretty obvious based on the replies that my interpretation is the commonly understood one.

Link me to one three year old who took the poll.

Any three year old who took the poll would almost certainly not comment. Meanwhile, if "people can coordinate" were a common interpretation, people would certainly comment and make that known.

So, find me 100 of the latter and I'll spend a few hours looking for one of the former.

Oh no sorry, I wasn't rebutting your 'people can't coordinate' argument, I am asking you to defend the multiple times you have added small children to this thought experiment to justify the blue pill.

added small children

Arguing that there will be small children involved is not "adding" them.

I am asking you to defend the multiple times you have added small children to this thought experiment to justify the blue pill.

My reasoning is as follows:

  1. Little kids often click on things

  2. Given a sufficiently large response (as is assumed everywhere else in this discussion), somewhere a kid will click on the poll

Seems pretty self-evident to me. Note that such an argument does not also claim that these kids will go on to comment on the poll. If you truly think it's so unlikely that a single kid anywhere will tap on a worldwide poll by accident, you're not worth more time anyway.

If you truly think it's so unlikely that a single kid anywhere will tap on a worldwide poll by accident, you're not worth more time anyway.

Lol so arguing about stupid hypotheticals on twitter is worth so much of your time that you are by far the most prolific poster in this thread, but I'm not worth your time because I asked you to prove one of your assertions (proof you are entirely incapable of providing)? Funny how I might be worth your time again if I randomly slapped at buttons in twitter polls though.

so arguing about stupid hypotheticals on twitter is worth so much of your time that you are by far the most prolific poster in this thread

Probably 80% of my comments are specifically arguing that at least one person will choose blue without a perfect game theoretic understanding of the problem. This is self-evidently true to me, and it's absolutely astounding that so many people disagree. If you look at the overall discussion, probably 60% of red pill comments reference the game theory as if it's a given that literally nobody will choose blue unintentionally. I showed up to my favorite forum one day and everyone had taken crazy pills.

I'm not worth your time because I asked you to prove one of your assertions

You know that's not why, or I wouldn't have responded to your original question. It's because you're denying an obvious truth without even the decency of giving me a reason for it.

proof you are entirely incapable of providing

Not incapable, just unwilling. I don't feel the need to cite my sources when I claim that the sky is blue or that kids click on buttons sometimes.

It's because you are adding elements to the hypothetical, but you only seem to notice when other people do that. There is no clicking in the original hypothetical. There are no three year olds, no twitter even. That's my point, you are asking for evidence for a nonsense hypothetical because you see the scenario happening one way and can't grasp that those red pillers are conceptualising it in a completely different way. And so when you grill each other on the specifics it's like you aren't even talking about the same thing, and you end up asking them for things that don't even factor into their version of the hypothetical.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't meant as a dig - a lot of those red pillers are doing the same to you. It's a really fantastically put together scissor statement, pitting two moral frameworks against each other in a way that ensures the opposition looks evil. The only reason I think I didn't get caught in it is because I have such low regard for anything twitter that I couldn't fully embrace the hypothetical and remained a level removed at all times.

It's because you are adding elements to the hypothetical, but you only seem to notice when other people do that.

I genuinely believe kids are part of the original hypothetical. As far as things others are adding, those are just reframings of the question, which are interesting but I think have different results simply due to the wording.

There is no clicking in the original hypothetical.

I was wrong when I said that people would click on the wrong option. The original hypothetical, though, is that everyone who participates in the poll gets the choice, and I genuinely think this group is likely to include some children.

The presence of children at all doesn't matter that much to me though. I'm just quite confident some innocent people will choose blue for one reason or another. Children are an easy way to argue this, but there are plenty of others. I'd rest easy if I could just stop the endless repeating of "well if everyone picks red nobody will die."