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this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025
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Ask Lemmy
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The Costanza Rule is real, but any attempt to utilize it is a paradox.
Rule: any decision I make is the wrong decision because I made it therefore I should always do the opposite.
But to do the opposite is also a choice I am making and therefore it too will be the wrong choice.
The only effective way to utilize it is if you're not Costanza. A bystander can have a perfect life by observing the Costanza and choosing opposite at every opportunity.
The real question is this: what if our universe is a giant Truman Show, and you're the sacrificial Costanza that allows another whole civilization to live in perfect peace and harmony?
This is why I have a wife, and vehemently disagree with her on every meaningful topic before ultimately saying "fine do whatever you want, I want nothing to do with this." This seems to have broken the curse.
The hard part is that you have to be opposed to the marriage as well. She has to choose you, latch on, and then yandere you down the aisle against your will.
I've been single for the last decade, resisting it that much will be impossible lol
Reminds me of a trolley problem variant I saw once. It went roughly like this:
A trolley is headed for Track A, where a single person is tied to the tracks. You can pull a lever and cause the trolley to switch to Track B, which enters a tunnel that you cannot see inside. Track B might have 3 people tied to the tracks, or it might be free of people. You can't see which.
Two hours ago, a perfect prediction machine inside the tunnel predicted whether you would pull the lever.
The perfect prediction machine is guaranteed to have made the correct prediction. Do you pull the lever?
That's not a problem. It is just an exercise in reading. Two possibilities remain. In one, you kill 1 person. In the other, you kill 3 persons. (the empty track "exists" only if you do not use it).
Correct, IMO. But right now, before you make the decision.... The machine has already made its prediction. The track either has people on it, or it doesn't. Changing your mind now will not change that. If you are so sure of that decision, then the machine must have put no people on Track B. So now if you do pull the lever, no one gets killed! So why don't you?
Because pulling the lever kills three people.
With no other information on how likely each is, and assuming the likelihood of each prediction stays the same, you should never pull the lever. The expected number of people in the tunnel is 1.5.
If the probability of there being zero people in the tunnel gets above 66%, you should pull the lever every time (the expected number of people in the tunnel drops below 1).
There's no probabilities involved. The machine predicts the future perfectly.
Perfect predictions are also probabilities. In that case it has a 100% chance of 3, given that you pull the lever.