I believe you have a problem with transparency here. You did not adequately link your revelation with the refutation of your previous thoughts. It may seem obvious to you that "squeezing the future into a narrow region" means that your old ideas "would have converted its future light cone into generic tools."

And, no, I do not think it is reasonable to ask me to read everything else you've ever said on this blog just to figure out the answer. Perhaps the explanation is too long for this post, but I would at least like some links.

And what does some people eating donuts on a string have to do with anything you said? Is YouTube reusing hashes from removed videos or something?

You can do that, but you'll very likely find that whoever you linked won't be able to understand what is being said. The author seems to have a real problem with expressing things on a level that can be understood by people who aren't already intelligent enough to have already figured out everything he says.

Do I read this correctly--that there was no key?

So, to know if an answer is complete, you go by how certain cognitive processes make you feel? Seriously? Feelings lie. All the time.

I can say, without hindsight interfering, that this strategy would not have worked on me. Because I can explain exactly what I was thinking as it happened.

You see, when I see someone alter the rules of a game, my instinct is that they are trying to do so for their own gain, and thus are not altruistic. Thus I immediately assumed the promise was a lie (which was right), and that he would not be splitting the money with me (which was wrong).

The question then becomes rather simple. My choices are to choose SPLIT, receive $0, and reward the treachery, or choose STEAL, still receive $0, and punish the treachery. Obviously, the latter is more valuable to me.

Now, in the short time required, I did not have time to check if my assumptions were correct. But let's say they aren't. The most likely way for me to be wrong would not be that he wasn't lying, but that he was going to choose SPLIT. Well, that's still a winning outcome for me. And if I feel guilty for winning all the money, I can always split after the fact with him. So that's not a problem either. The only option that is a possible problem is if he's telling the entire truth. But I see this as highly unlikely, as what does he have to gain from splitting after the fact rather than just using the balls?

I honestly was surprised that this worked. I actually thought the other guy was foolish for choosing SPLIT until the reveal. As I do not know the other possible solutions I cannot say the first guy's solution was rational, but I am fairly confident in saying the second guy's decision was not.

The problem is that your examples already go overboard. You describe a good upper bound of how nice to be, but you can usually get away with less, and not have to constantly be constructing bullshit in your brain. This is what I think causes people to object.

For example, is this comment really going to upset you? I seriously doubt it. There would be no reason for me to write, say, "You have made a really good point, but I wonder if you perhaps went a tiny bit overboard in your examples, and thus this decreased your effectiveness."

The basic message, and the one I agree with, is to not be quite so combative when you criticize, and to make sure your criticism would cause more good than harm.

Also, you didn't need to spend so much time explaining, either. That probably also led to the idea that your methodology has a low signal-to-noise ratio. I mean, I personally skipped most of the middle, as you were just repeating yourself. I think you'd be more convincing if you learned about brevity.

In other words, things I don't find funny are objectively bad. You want the right not to laugh at jokes you don't find funny, don't go around acting like you determine what is and isn't funny.

And fitting in with other people often necessitates doing things you don't like. It's part of living in a society. Laughter is not just some involuntary spasm you have when you find something funny. It's also a way to communicate with others. Furthermore, it makes you feel good, so learning to do it more often can make life a lot better. It's step one for anyone with anger problems.

Oh, and I don't personally find any of the jokes in here funny. Your Objectivist joke isn't funny to non-Objectivists. It's just absurdism, with no set up to be released.

Thank you. I started to feel like I was reading the patter of a Darren Brown act.