I concur. We seem more interested in phenomena which are interesting psychologically than which are useful. This should not be surprising—interesting phenomena are fun to read about. Implementing a new cognitive habit takes hard work and repetition. Perhaps it is like divorcing warm fuzzies from utilons—we should differentiate from “biases that are fun to read/think about” and “practices which will help you become less wrong.”
As a metaphor, consider flashy spinning kicks vs. pushups in martial arts. The former are much more fun to watch and think about, but boring exercises to build strength and coordination are much more basic and important.
This pretty vague for a heresy. Can you link to a comment or post that explains what you’re referring to, or why we should condition on wide-scale adoption?
that we seem more interested in esoteric situations than in the obvious improvements that would have the biggest impact if adopted on a wide scale.
I concur. We seem more interested in phenomena which are interesting psychologically than which are useful. This should not be surprising—interesting phenomena are fun to read about. Implementing a new cognitive habit takes hard work and repetition. Perhaps it is like divorcing warm fuzzies from utilons—we should differentiate from “biases that are fun to read/think about” and “practices which will help you become less wrong.”
As a metaphor, consider flashy spinning kicks vs. pushups in martial arts. The former are much more fun to watch and think about, but boring exercises to build strength and coordination are much more basic and important.
This pretty vague for a heresy. Can you link to a comment or post that explains what you’re referring to, or why we should condition on wide-scale adoption?
aren’t we supposed to be pulling sideways on issues that aren’t in popular contention?