Newcomb’s problem is a thought experiment where you’re presented with two boxes, and the option to take one or both. One box is transparent and always contains $1000. The second is a mystery box.
Before making the choice, a supercomputer (or team of psychologists, etc) predicted whether you would take one box or both. If it predicted you would take both, the mystery box is empty. If it predicted you’d take just the mystery box, then it contains $1,000,000. The predictor rarely makes mistakes.
This problem tends to split people 50-50 with each side thinking the answer is obvious.
An argument for two-boxing is that, once the prediction has been made, your choice no longer influences the outcome. The mystery box already has whatever it has, so there’s no reason to leave the $1000 sitting there.
An argument for one-boxing is that, statistically, one-boxers tend to walk away with more money than two-boxers. It’s unlikely that the computer guessed wrong, so rather than hoping that you can be the rare case where it did, you should assume that whatever you choose is what it predicted.
So, if I’m understanding right, the computer said there’s a great chance at $1 million in the mystery box if I’m the type to pick it and only it, which I am.
But I pick it for this bad reason: friends and I like to make fun of my troll luck. I’d take it, and somehow get $0 despite several more people after me will get $1 million after me, including two boxers. We’d laugh at “can you believe this shit?” and know it just wasn’t in the stars, just like that time I broke my ankle and all the automated walkways at the airport were broken. It’s that kind of thing (and yes that happened). My infamous troll luck strikes again!
Or it’s all superstition and I get a million bucks, since I’m pretty sure my infamous luck is just confirmation bias. Either way, fun had by all.