Episode Details

Deepfates on twitter wrote:

If you're in a theater and you shout "Fire!", and the audience reacts predictably and in the process trample someone to death, are you responsible?

What if there was no fire?

What if you legitimately believed it was a fire, does that make it okay? Does it depend on evidence?

I tried to give it a serious answer, and I wanted to check in with The LW Folk if this answer made sense to others here.

ii. Shapley Shares

My actual answer, within frame, is "You have some share of responsibility." The exact share depends on the exact situation.

(I think the first order thing to be checking is "was there a fire, or not?". But, for now, answering the question as-asked)

I think people have some responsibility for the second-order effects of their actions, and "how much?" depends on, like, how second-order it was.

Something something "shapley value?" I realize shapley value is intractable to calculate in most cases, but, is suggestive of what shape of answer you'd get if you were omniscient

If you were the only person shouting fire and there was exactly one [...]

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Outline:

(00:38) ii. Shapley Shares

(03:01) ii. Cooperation among people who disagree on what is true and what is good

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First published:
April 13th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mbaGDfs3rgqE6GePv/the-shapley-share-of-responsibility

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.