Newcomb’s Paradox is Not a Paradox, by Matt Beller (U.S. SEC)
Newcomb’s Paradox, more appropriately called Newcomb’s Problem, is a scenario in which someone claims to be able to predict a decision that you will make, and you are then asked to make that decision. Since its popularization by Robert Nozick in 1969 , misconceptions regarding Newcomb’s Problem have been put forward and allowed to flourish, convoluting and distorting what should be a straightforward resolution. Although Nozick’s analysis of Newcomb’s Problem is thorough and eventually arrives at the proper praxeological conclusion, re-exploring it gives us an excellent opportunity to examine some of the most fundamental assumptions of praxeology and Austrian economics and, in the tradition of Henry Hazlitt, to explode the fallacies that surround the problem.
