Fogfield Project

I wrote a strange fairy tale for children and adults. I think it's probably my best work online so far. Enjoy.

@rapid_rar2 An ethical position that runs a distinctly non-negligible risk of culling all its adherents isn't ethical at all

@FogfieldProject OK, but that’s a particular ethical stance you’re taking. And I hope you don’t begrudge those of us who understand the game theory perfectly well but have a different ethical stance as to how much we value our own life compared to how much we value the lives of others.

This isn't an exercise in logic or ethics or game theory or anything like that, it's an exercise in *semiotics*. Something about this *framing* of the problem, in English, on Twitter, messes with your head and makes you pattern-match to problems where blue is the better answer.

@darrellprograms @GrimGrin17 @MN_Vikings_Pete There are cultures on this earth where mothers cannot even be relied on to breastfeed their own infants without threat of social consequences, and blue pressers expect us to believe they'll all risk their lives for strangers

@GrimGrin17 @MN_Vikings_Pete @FogfieldProject You're making things up in addition to the original scenario. Anyway, in third world countries, small children often starve first during food shortages because adults eat their fill and let the kids fight over what's left.

@rapid_rar2 Risk of killing me is too high in all cases and I have negligible leverage to achieve zero deaths. I do however have perfect leverage to assure my own survival, which I will act on because I value my life more than dirt

@FogfieldProject But we’re not talking about killing you, we’re talking about risk of killing you. If your goal is to maximize the probability that 0 people die, what is the best way to achieve that?

@GrimGrin17 I'm discussing the bait itself, not the fish swarming around it. If there were no bait there'd be no fish

@FogfieldProject The people on the red team are doing the exact same thing though. They are writing long paragraphs on why they are better people for picking the red button. They are spreading it all over the place It's weird that this hasn't occurred to you.

@rapid_rar2 Insane and wrong at every level. Total failure to engage with the problem. Actively detrimental to society A 'robust outcome' that kills me is not worth my time

@FogfieldProject Blue is the better answer from a social coordination point of view.

@kendrictonn Wait until you find out what milk is made of at the micrometre scale

@FogfieldProject Can't believe I missed the central item in the category this way

Dinner was yogurt with blueberries, peas with butter, and macadamia nut ice cream: I'm in my Dairy with Spheres Era

@GoodFarmingAdam This is the reasoning of the insane. Worst button-pushing rationale I've seen yet

By either altruism or utilitarianism, blue is objectively the better answer under 50/50 conditions. Assume 7 billion people are voting. Red guarantees the individual voter survives. Blue is personally risky, because if Red wins, Blue voters die. But Blue is the only choice that can create the outcome where nobody dies. Now assume the final social result is uncertain across a realistic range, not exactly 50/50. For example, suppose the world could land anywhere between 40% Red / 60% Blue and 60% Red / 40% Blue. That is a 20 percentage-point range. With 7 billion people, that range equals 1.4 billion possible vote positions. A single Blue vote only becomes decisive if the result is right at the survival threshold. So the chance of one vote being decisive is roughly 1 in 1.4 billion. But if that one Blue vote is decisive, it can move the world from “Red barely wins and roughly 3.5 billion Blue voters die” to “Blue wins and nobody dies.” So the rough collective value is: 3.5 billion lives saved ÷ 1.4 billion vote-range = 2.5 expected lives. But Blue also carries personal risk. In roughly half of possible outcomes, Red still wins, so choosing Blue instead of Red costs the voter their own life. That cost is about 0.5 expected lives. So: 2.5 expected lives saved − 0.5 personal-risk cost = about +2 expected lives. Therefore, under a realistic ±10% social uncertainty model, one Blue vote is not just symbolic. Compared with a Red vote, it has about +2 expected lives of collective value. Red guarantees one personal life; Blue has positive collective life-value because it supports the only outcome where everyone survives.

@AlwaysWrightDM that is precisely what i am pointing out

@FogfieldProject You say, ignoring that the framework IS part of the problem.

@94SweetGoats You don't seem to value your life very much

@FogfieldProject The only way for me to win is if blue wins. If I press red, and red wins, I have still lost.

@FCopernicium You're engaging with the problem in a constructive way but reaching entirely the wrong conclusions

Red, in the original framing, is absolved of personal responsibility in two ways. A) It implies that there is some possibility that everyone could simply pick red, so doing the self-serving choice of pushing red SHOULD be the responsible thing (when this is, logically, never going to be the case, particularly if you don't explicitly exclude children). B) It phrases blue's demise as entirely their fault, as though reds had nothing to do with it. "IF blue doesn't get 50%" is the same as saying "If red gets more than 50%". Red is voting in favor of killing blues. Other ways people are trying to rephrase the question is adding extra information -- something scary directly in your face that would make it unlikely anyone would ever pick blue (such as the "woodchipper" example I see floating around), whereas simply pushing a button has no such problems. When you remove that explicit framing, moral actors will overwhelmingly choose blue.

@MN_Vikings_Pete While I disagree, this is one of the better responses. It gestures in roughly the right direction

@FogfieldProject That's a good reason to vote blue. Framing affects people. The human brain isn't natural good at game theory. Voting blue is the only way to help those folks, and I think they deserve help even if they are bad at game theory.

@BlameBootsy Belligerent quokka

@FogfieldProject You're deeeeeep in a dunning-kreuger chasm and trying way too hard.

This is precisely my experience with birdwatching as well and is mirrored in my local poetry club Slam poetry however is 100% queer

@_natastrophe_ Yes, poetry - old style, not slam.

Birders (in my experience) are generally either boomer retirees or young queer people. Are there other hobbies that have these generational dynamics

Your king has called you to war. If enough men volunteer, the enemy will be routed and safe return is assured. If only a paltry few sign up for the front, they will all be slain. Those who stay and tend the farm are safe. What would it take for any one man to join the march?

To say that matter is the only real thing, because it is consistent and observable and measurable, is like being inside a video game, claiming HP and mana and polygons are the ultimate reality because they have numbers on them. Adorable

It's a dilemma in which one option wins every time, while the other one sometimes wins and sometimes fails catastrophically killing you instantly

The kind of people who get this kind of question in their algorithm are also the type to be easily baited into a supposedly prosocial act. So you know that blue will win, which makes people vote blue, a self-fulfilling prophesy Any other framing? Red wins every time

@kendrictonn Are we forgetting something?

Next comes cherries in cream, chickpeas with ghee, and meatballs in white sauce