This whole “outside view” methodology, where you insist on arguing from ignorance even where you have additional knowledge, is insane (outside of avoiding the specific biases such as planning fallacy induced by making additional detail available to your mind, where you indirectly benefit from basing your decision on ignorance).
Perhaps compare a doomsday cult with a drug addict: The outside view (e.g. of family and practitioners) looks one way—while the inside view often looks pretty different.
That’s not what “inside view” means. The way you seem to intend it, it admittedly is a useless tool, but having it as an option in the false dichotomy together with reference class tennis is transparently disingenuous (or stupid).
You seem to be thinking about reference class forecasting. In that particular case, I just meant looking from the outside—but the basic idea is much the same. Doomsday organisations have a pattern. The SIAI isn’t an ordinary one—but it shares many of the same basic traits with them.
Given that a certain fraction of comments are foolish, you can expect that an even larger fraction of votes are foolish, because there are fewer controls on votes (e.g. a voter doesn’t risk his reputation while a commenter does).
Which is why Slashdot (which was a lot more worthwhile in the past than it is now) introduced voting on how other people vote (which Slashdot called metamoderation). Worked pretty well: the decline of Slashdot was mild and gradual compared to the decline of almost every other social site that ever reached Slashdot’s level of quality.
Hmm—I didn’t think of that. Maybe deathbed repentance is similar as well—in that it offers sinners a shot at eternal bliss in return for public endorsement—and maybe a slice of the will.
I don’t understand why downvote this. It does sound like an accurate representation of the outside view.
This whole “outside view” methodology, where you insist on arguing from ignorance even where you have additional knowledge, is insane (outside of avoiding the specific biases such as planning fallacy induced by making additional detail available to your mind, where you indirectly benefit from basing your decision on ignorance).
In many cases outside view, and in particular reference class tennis, is a form of filtering the evidence, and thus “not technically” lying, a tool of anti-epistemology and dark arts, fit for deceiving yourself and others.
Perhaps compare a doomsday cult with a drug addict:
The outside view (e.g. of family and practitioners) looks one way—while the inside view often looks pretty different.
That’s not what “inside view” means. The way you seem to intend it, it admittedly is a useless tool, but having it as an option in the false dichotomy together with reference class tennis is transparently disingenuous (or stupid).
You seem to be thinking about reference class forecasting. In that particular case, I just meant looking from the outside—but the basic idea is much the same. Doomsday organisations have a pattern. The SIAI isn’t an ordinary one—but it shares many of the same basic traits with them.
We all already know about this pattern match. Its reiteration is boring and detracts from the conversation.
If this particular critique has been made more clearly elsewhere, perhaps let me know, and I will happily link to there in the future.
Update 2011-05-30: There’s now this recent article: The “Rapture” and the “Singularity” Have Much in Common—which makes a rather similar point.
It may have been downvoted for the caps.
Given that a certain fraction of comments are foolish, you can expect that an even larger fraction of votes are foolish, because there are fewer controls on votes (e.g. a voter doesn’t risk his reputation while a commenter does).
Which is why Slashdot (which was a lot more worthwhile in the past than it is now) introduced voting on how other people vote (which Slashdot called metamoderation). Worked pretty well: the decline of Slashdot was mild and gradual compared to the decline of almost every other social site that ever reached Slashdot’s level of quality.
Yes: votes should probably not be anonymous—and on “various other” social networking sites, they are not.
Metafilter, for one. It is hard for an online community to avoid becoming worthless, but Metafilter has avoided that for 10 years.
Perhaps downvoted for suggesting that the salvation-for-cash meme is a modern one. I upvoted, though.
Hmm—I didn’t think of that. Maybe deathbed repentance is similar as well—in that it offers sinners a shot at eternal bliss in return for public endorsement—and maybe a slice of the will.
We all already know about this pattern match. Reiterating it is boring and detracts from the conversation, and I downvote any such comment I see.