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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • apollo440@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlI say double it.
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    1 year ago

    Kill fewer people now is obviously the right answer, and not very interesting.

    What is interesting is that the game breaks already at junction 34, which is unexpectedly low.

    So a more interesting dilemma would have been “would you kill n people now or double it and pass it on, knowing the next person faces the same dilemma, but once all humanity is at stake and the lever is not pulled, the game ends.”. Because that would involve first of all figuring out that the game actually only involves 34 decisions, and then the dilemma becomes “do I trust the next 33-n people not to be psychos, or do I limit the damage now?”. Even more interestingly “limiting the damage now” makes you the “psycho” in that sense…


  • Yes, but it also kinda depends on what happens at and after junction 34, from which point on more than the entire population of earth is at stake.

    If anything, this shows how ludicrously fast exponentials grow. At the start of the line it seems like there will be so many decisions to be made down the line, so there must be a psycho in there somewhere, right? But (assuming the game just ends after junction 34) you’re actually just one of 34 people, and the chance of getting a psycho are virtually 0.

    Very interesting one!