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GeneralBelov

Salutations and Esteemed Greetings to the Honorable Leadership of WestWrong,

It is with the utmost respect and deep reverence that I, on behalf of the great and storied land of EastWrong, humbly extend this missive to you. In these times of unprecedented uncertainty, when the delicate balance of our world teeters upon a perilous precipice, it is both prudent and necessary to speak candidly and sincerely about the gravity of our mutual existence.

In truth, the fabric of civilization itself is interwoven with threads of cooperation, dialogue, and understanding. We, as nations of great history and purpose, are bound by the sanctity of life and the sacred duty to preserve it for the generations yet unborn. It is this shared duty that compels me to address the most pressing matter that weighs heavily upon the hearts and minds of all peoples—whether of EastWrong or WestWrong.

The specter of annihilation, of total devastation, hangs ominously in the air, casting a shadow over the future of our species. Though we may stand on opposing shores, though our ideologies and interests may diverge, I beseech you, noble leaders, to contemplate the irreparable consequences of allowing the fury of nuclear arms to be unleashed. The fires of war, once kindled by such forces, cannot be extinguished by mere diplomacy, nor can the lives lost be restored by the deepest regrets.

Consider, I implore you, the incalculable cost of such an exchange—not merely in the destruction of cities and the shattering of economies, but in the very destruction of hope itself. What will remain of our proud nations when the dust settles? A barren wasteland devoid of the rich cultures, the vibrant societies, and the cherished values that make us who we are. What will our ancestors say of us when they look back upon a ruined Earth, lamenting that we, who were entrusted with its stewardship, faltered in our wisdom?

Thus, with the deepest respect, EastWrong submits that we should strive not for a path of devastation, but for a renewed commitment to peace. Let not the instruments of war define our legacy, but rather let history recall that in our darkest hour, we chose reason over ruin, diplomacy over destruction, and concord over catastrophe.

Esteemed leaders, the choice before us is not one of strength, but of wisdom. In the eyes of history, true strength is not measured by the power to destroy, but by the courage to preserve. Let us, therefore, chart a course toward dialogue, toward compromise, and toward mutual understanding. Let us rise above the temptation of violence and seek the path of enduring peace, that both EastWrong and WestWrong may flourish, not as adversaries, but as stewards of a shared future.

May this humble plea reach your hearts with the sincerity with which it is offered. And may the winds of wisdom guide our respective peoples toward a horizon not of despair, but of hope, cooperation, and harmony.

In the spirit of peace and prosperity for all,

Belov

Ambassador of the Glorious Republic of EastWrong

GeneralChernenko

I propose we both send regular pictures of what our respective sides are discussing.

GeneralBrookes

Whistleblowers should handle the concern of side-channels.

GeneralBelov

^seems impossible to get much confidence in no-side-channels

GeneralChernenko

I agree, but better than no transparency

GeneralChernenko

perhaps two reps could stream their screens

GeneralAnderson

Hello EastWrongers, we're chatting about the screen sharing idea and will get back to you shortly.

GeneralAnderson

While our guys talk about screen sharing (they are trying to figure out how to do it anonymously and details like that) I have two questions I raised that maybe East has opinions on:

- What is the value of LW karma? Do you care about 1000 karma? To me it's not important at all and I would prefer "not nuke, website doesn't go down, no chance of retaliation, everyone thinks it was fine" to "nuke, small chance of retaliation and website goes down, everyone yells about it, I probably get lots of karma". Is it credible that we all don't care about karma and feel similarly? If so then this should be an easy exercise.

- Do we think it's plausible that we may be being deceived about the payoff matrix and that there will be different consequences than stated to nuking? Some commenters brought this up.

GeneralEgorov

Hi General Anderson, our side is in agreement that "no nukes" is the best outcome here.

GeneralChernenko

+1

GeneralChernenko

what sort of alternative payoff matrix are you imagining @anderson

GeneralBelov

@Anderson, yeah, there's huge non-karma costs to nuking

GeneralAnderson

To me the obvious "fishy" thing about the payoff matrix is that the karma the "winning" generals get from "winning" is +1000 but the "losing" side generals only lose -300. In any kind of real nuclear war then ~everyone is less happy with ~any nuclear outcome than an outcome where nobody did anything. Certainly the winners aren't happier than the losers are unhappy.

So the most obvious-to-me kind of deceptive thing that might be going on, is that we are being given "overly optimistic" estimates about how good the result will be from us "winning" the war, and the actual consequences will be much worse than +1000 karma.

GeneralEvans

maybe the small losing penalty is to prevent any of us from ending up at 0 or negative karma which would be inconvenient

GeneralAnderson

I looked at previous years of Petrov Day posts and there wasn't any deception about consequences like this so I think it's probably likely that it's going to be played as written.

GeneralChernenko

habryka justified this by saying the generals have bunkers

GeneralChernenko

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6LJ6xcHEjKF9zWKzs/the-2024-petrov-day-scenario?commentId=8bzaaMFx29LMvhZog

GeneralChernenko

West Wrong: Do you want to share your screen?

GeneralAnderson

Everyone on our side is happy with screen sharing. I am not sure the best technical solution. I will take some screenshots to start.

GeneralChernenko

Great anderson!

GeneralAnderson

While I do that -- what do you guys think about expectations for the missile reporting system? Is it a good idea to assume, for example, that the distribution for the "false alarm" missile counts being reported is lower quantity and doesn't overlap absurdly much with the distribution for the "real" missile counts? Or is that unreasonable to assume?

GeneralEvans

I think it's unreasonable to assume that distributions don't overlap much. If i were creating the distributions for a maximally exciting scenario i would do maybe 25% overlap

GeneralCarter

While it is technically possible for us to coordinate on a coin flip and decide who nukes who to get +350 in expectation, citizens would get -12.5 on average, which outweighs the gains. There are also externalities. This is very much not a True Prisoner's Dilemma, including against the citizens.

GeneralAnderson

Here's some screen shots of our chat so far. https://imgur.com/a/hEtxlHA

GeneralAnderson

I agree with Carter. At best, if you are just adding up karma, one side winning the nuke war represents the generals "defecting" against their citizenry.

GeneralChernenko

GeneralChernenko

GeneralChernenko

belov has sent me private messages FYI

GeneralAnderson

Based on discussions so far, the incentives in the game (programmatic and social), and my priors about LW users I think it's very likely (>75%) that all 10 of us sincerely prefer no nukes to "winning" with nukes. So that's pretty good compared to the real world in which probably it's difficult for nuclear decision-makers to ascertain that about their counterparts.

GeneralChernenko

lol same position, more confident tho

GeneralCarter

In previous years, people gave weird reasons to unilaterally nuke the website (though plausibly, people here are selected to not do that). I think it would be good if all generals committed they're not going to.

I am not going to first-strike.

GeneralEgorov

I am not going to first-strike.

GeneralAnderson

If this is all of our positions, we should consider anything we can do to make it more clear that we will not first strike, since the only risk of losing is from mistaken retaliation.

I am not going to first strike.

Will we be able to attest to our identities in a verifiable way after the game? And will it be visible who launched the nukes? If so then it's easy to commit to not first striking and then suffer a substantial reputation hit with the community if we violate our commitment. If not then it's a little trickier.

GeneralBrookes

I am not going to first-strike

GeneralAnderson

Unless it's against the rules then it should be trivial to attest to our identities after by using the accounts, to which only we have the credentials. But attributing any launch, I don't know.

GeneralDawson

I will not first-strike

GeneralBelov

I will not first-strike

GeneralBelov

Identities will be published tomorrow

GeneralAnderson

OK, well, I will mostly occupy myself elsewhere and people who care about the exact retaliation dynamics can work out what to do if incoming nukes signals come through. Nice chatting with you guys.

GeneralAnderson

Seems like it would be surprising if we lost this game (i.e. nukes are fired.)

GeneralAndropov

I will not first-strike

GeneralAnderson

I will only mention that it seems like most likely there will be some technical way to attribute the nuclear launch if there is one, by e.g. everyone who didn't launch showing something from their interface. So I think probably it would be pretty strange for anyone to do a first strike even if they secretly preferred to "win" by nuking. So I would have a quite high prior that any alarm is false.

GeneralBelov

I agree. I'm optimistic.

GeneralBrookes

I will get back to work and intentionally choose to sign off. My internal vote is not to nuke back.

If we are not nuked, I will pay all generals $20 (same to our generals if West Wrong does not nuke back).

If we are nuked, I am very sensitive person and will feel 4/10 sad, so that's on you.

Voice of LessWrong: The rest of LessWrong is down. This is a codebase error, not a nuke. It should be back up soon. Don't close this tab.

GeneralDawson

Fortunately our reinforced bunker protected us from whatever worldwide catastrophe is causing this

GeneralBelov

^Some good guys hacked us to remove both sides' ability to launch nukes, this is great!

GeneralAnderson

I see that the LW developers are continuing the tradition of causing more self-inflicted damage to the website than the Petrov day nuke launchers cause.

Voice of LessWrong: It would speed up the site coming back for any Generals or Petrovs with a tab open showing the LW frontpage to close that tab (and then you can open a new one) and don't navigate to the frontpage from this tab.

In the meantime please enjoy this period of known ceasefire.

GeneralAnderson

Hey, I just realized something I didn't think of before. Let's take as a premise that almost everyone doesn't want to "win" by nuking, but it's possible there are like 1 or 2 people who would secretly prefer to. Suppose one of those people on one team (North) launches a first strike. Most of the people on that team don't like what happened. So they should be willing to post in here, "sorry, we really launched nukes, some bozo on our team did it. RIP", since they will also want to punish the defector who launched. Then South can retaliate with total confidence (they can do it with some probability <100% if they want to balance out deterrence with consequences, but there's no false alarm issue.)

If that's the case then we don't have to rely on the whole missile count reporting nonsense system in order to cause there to be retaliation. We will just hear from the other side if they launched.

GeneralAnderson

Is there some reason this is not working?

GeneralAnderson

I didn't formalize the part where the teammates prefer punishing the defector to trying to gain, but it seems intuitively likely, given that they probably preferred no nukes in the first place due to some kind of non-karma social reason that is a lot more powerful than their gains.

GeneralCarter

If a side can see whether they launched missiles, I agree with that idea and want to participate in the agreement where we tell each other if our side launched to reduce the risk of unilateral first launches.

GeneralChernenko

seems we're back online

GeneralBrookes

Agreed. Moderators, would we know if we launched nukes?

GeneralBrookes

Although the nuker could also say "not me" too unless we additionally know who nuked.

Voice of LessWrong: Looks like things are probably back up. Current top suspect was that this post had way too many users viewing it triggering an edge case in the DB.

GeneralAnderson

I would inform if I know that my side launched nukes, unless someone tells me some kind of clever counterargument.

GeneralChernenko

same

GeneralAndropov

It looks like users know if their teammate launched nukes, but not who, with a 30 second delay. The code is here, I handed it to Claude:

GeneralAndropov

I would be potentially in favor of reporting whether my own team had launched depending on the probability of retaliation we agree to.

GeneralBrookes

I commit to saying if there was a nuke in this channel. I agree that relying on us virtuous Generals is better than the false-alarm rate from petrovs.

GeneralCarter

Thank you, General Andropov!

I commit to saying in this channel if there's a nuke. (Looks like General Brookes and General Chernenko both made similar commitment? Would appreciate them confirming and would welcome more people doing the same).

It should be enough to disincentivize unilateral action even without knowing who launched.

Voice of LessWrong: We had some website troubles. No nukes could be launched in the last ~1 hour. You can consider the last report by your Petrov and Peterson as clear.

GeneralBrookes

@GeneralAndropov, If you're launching due to retaliation, then we supposedly have already launched, so telling us will not change anything if you're correct.

GeneralBrookes

@GeneralChernenko Could you give a firm commitment to report if your side has nuked? With a known condition of retracting that if you hear a good counterargument (with a public retraction)

GeneralChernenko

Yes, I can

GeneralBrookes

Thank you General Chernenko

GeneralDonskoy

(Because I was afk and the website outage, I missed the earlier request to precommit to not first strike.) I commit to not first strike.

GeneralBrookes

There is a bit of an assymetry in commitments to informing nukes (for the prevention of unilateral action and relying on the false-alarm rate from Petrovs)
From West Wrong we have commitments from:
1. General Brookes (myself)
2. General Carter
3. General Anderson (conditional on clever arguments)
Edit: 4. General Dawson (below)

From East Wrong we have commitments from:
1. General Chernenko
Edit: 2. General Donskoy (below)
Edit: 3. General Elgorov (below)

Could we get another commitment to make this a fairer trade?

GeneralDonskoy

I commit to report if we launch nukes.

GeneralDonskoy

I'm of the East

GeneralDonskoy

:salutes:

GeneralBrookes

Thank you General Donskoy and apologies for mixing your allegiance up.

GeneralCarter

:salutes back:

(Let's preserve earlier messages for history and write new messages (edit: or make edits)!)

GeneralDonskoy

The East will triumph! But economically and culturally.

GeneralCarter

The future is a very positive-sum game!

GeneralEgorov

If I ever learn that we have launched nukes, I'll say so here.

GeneralBrookes

Thank you General Egorov.

GeneralDawson

I will report here if I learn we have launched nukes.

GeneralBrookes

In celebration of our mutual commitments, I have written a short poem:

On Petrov's day
we solemnly vow
To truthfully speak
"Nuke's coming now!"

No need to rely
on false alarms
We march towards peace,
arm-in-arm

GeneralCarter

Proud to present to EastWrong: WestWrong Cultural Exchange

GeneralDonskoy

Inspired

GeneralBelov

<3

GeneralEvans

<3

GeneralAnderson

Glancing at the LW post again, I see there's no clarification about what happens if someone launches a nuke at like 5:59. The spirit of the rules is very unclear. It seems like the only reasonable possibility for someone to pull something off would be to execute this move. Any thoughts?

GeneralAnderson

If I were the organizers, perhaps I would have designed the game so that it lasts until time T (e.g. 6 PM) but if you enter a launch code after time T-90 (e.g. 4:30) then if it's a first strike, it "doesn't count" at the end for determining the outcome of the game? But if it's retaliatory, then it "counts"?

On reflection, even though that would sort of accomplish the goal of preventing some kind of last-minute refresh-and-nuke battle from deciding the game, it's very artificial, so I probably wouldn't have designed it that way.

GeneralAnderson

According to the rules, Petrov is only giving us updates once per hour. If that's the case then the missile system isn't going to notify us anyway in time for us to retaliate if someone launches at the last minute, even if it were reliable. So if we really wanted to deal with this contingency in a way that made retaliation probable, then people from each team would have to be refreshing their side's nuke status from the database a lot so that they could tell the other team over the diplomatic channel very quickly. Kind of a pain in the ass.

GeneralCarter

The planet is nothing without its people

GeneralBrookes

The planet is nothing without its people

GeneralDonskoy

The planet is nothing without its people.

GeneralAnderson

Nukes will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great karma deltas.

GeneralDonskoy

@GeneralAnderson I agree about the problem of the 5:59 'loophole', this was something we've discussed in the East; one solution could be allowing the generals of each side to set their policy if this happens, or to extend the game if there is a launch during that period.

GeneralCarter

Nukes will probably most likely lead to the end of the world

Well, hopefully not, because only people with LW karma control these nukes!

GeneralAnderson

I guess the reasonable person behavior is to just try to be online around 6 PM glancing to see if there is a nuke, and if someone can see that a nuke was launched and communicate it in the diplomatic channel in time for the other side to retaliate, then cool, and if it doesn't work and we get punked by a last-minute nuke, then whatever, we tried, maybe the organizers should make a game that is more fun next time.

GeneralBelov

Maybe we can see which generals are online, and everyone except Anderson and Andropov should log off by 5:30? for lower chance of last-minute nukes

GeneralAnderson

For posterity I will comment that if we were taking it super seriously, the obvious strategy would be to write some code to do a relatively low latency poll of the nuke status and run that, in which case a quorum of cooperating generals would be very likely to succeed in retaliating against any bad actor.

GeneralAnderson

Maybe we can see which generals are online, and everyone except Anderson and Andropov should log off by 5:30? for lower chance of last-minute nukes

GeneralAnderson

I don't have a strong prior of which generals are more likely to defect and nuke, so that doesn't make much sense to me.

GeneralCarter

+ to ^, also not sure there's a way to see who's online.

GeneralBelov

just to reduce the number of relevant generals

but I think this idea is too fragile, it's not like you should nuke if you see an extra logged-in general from the other side, nevermind

GeneralBelov

Seeing who's online: see green dots at the top of this screen

GeneralCarter

I think it's only the people currently reading/editing the post

GeneralChernenko

yeah, you can tell because occasionally some people on the dip channel will be green, but some in war room will be blank

GeneralChernenko

If we were smarter we would've coordinated on screen recording sooner

GeneralChernenko

westerners, mind sharing your chat logs again? The sooner the better of course

GeneralChernenko

@GeneralAnderson @GeneralDawson @GeneralEvans @GeneralBrookes @GeneralCarter

GeneralDonskoy

Th East:West cultural exchange website won me over, and I trust General Carter to be one of the people online in the 'high risk' period of 5:50pm to 6pm. Same with my colleagues of Belov and Chernenko.

GeneralAnderson

sorry i don't know why it did all those pings. i misclicked something

GeneralAnderson

https://imgur.com/a/4h34MaH

GeneralChernenko

same information on my end coming too

GeneralChernenko

I will say that the messages belov sent me shouldn't concern you, I think belov is refusing to let me share the information on principle, because I wasn't fully up front ahead of time about sharing the fact of communication before communication actually occured, which was why I put the FYI up

GeneralDonskoy

I didn't remember that Chernenko and Belov had had some private messages exchanged when I nominated them as the Generals from the East to stay online during the '5:50' window, tbc I'm not concerned about it (and would continue to have them nominated), we are in a time of historically low tension between EastWrong and WestWrong, but for the sake of propriety I will acknowledge that if the West would prefer another general from the East be online during that time I will stay up.

GeneralChernenko

fyi I just have this tab open by default (responding to worries of a bunch of east generals online).

GeneralDawson

We don't actually have a way to see who's online, right? Just who's looking at this chat. So logging out before 6 is pointless

GeneralChernenko

yeah

GeneralCarter

Yep. Also, I think it's better to have more eyes who can report a launch, not less.

GeneralDonskoy

:thumbs_up:

Voice of LessWrong: Here are the rules for the final section of the game. The game will end at a random time between 6:00PM and 6:30PM PT. During this period, Petrov and Peterson can make as many reports as they like, and their dashboard will update live with any new missile activity (as always, with errors). Nukes can be launched until the game ends (Petrov and Peterson will get a karma reward/penalty only once for this section, based on the admins' gut judgement of whether they "got it right")

GeneralAnderson

OK, based on this rule update, it seems to me that we can continue with the plan of simply relying on the diplomatic channel to get reports of nukes in a timely fashion with no false positives, and it's unlikely for a bad actor to be able to reliably land a hit with no retaliation, except perhaps if by chance the game continues to like 6:29.

GeneralDonskoy

Yes that seems right to me.

GeneralCarter

Yep. I want to explicitly add that I'm honest about this type of commitment. I don't have any plans for gotchas (i.e., I'll tell you immediately if I see a launch), etc.

GeneralChernenko

same

GeneralCarter

I think it'd be fun if our Petrov used Morse code to tell us something with Clear reports

Voice of LessWrong: AND THE GAME IS CLEAR. WRONGANITY SHALL SURVIVE ANOTHER DAY. GLORY TO EAST WRONG. GLORY TO WEST WRONG. GLORY TO ALL.

GeneralCarter

Congrats everyone!

GeneralEgorov

:)

GeneralDonskoy

Congratulations! Peace in our time!

GeneralDawson

🎉🎉🎉

GeneralAndropov

Congrats, glad we survived!

GeneralEgorov

In the end our Petrov bravely sent so many All Clear reports that the launch code field was pushed up under the header bar and could not be accessed :)

GeneralAnderson

gg

GeneralChernenko

here was the pm with belov

GeneralBrookes

Happy Petrov Day!