In particular I got seriously stuck with “blizzard is -$100”. This is a pretty alien way to express things to me. [...] Now I am tangled with problems with the auxillary tools and the point is obscured. [...] If we stayed at more abstract level then my disagremeent on the details would not similarly interfere.
But if you’re stuck on how to model driving through the blizzard as having a utility-value of -$100, it means that you would have been stuck on any explanation of “avoid the sunk-cost fallacy” until you understand how that kind of utility-scoring works.
So the specific example was superior to the general statement in revealing where the remaining hole in your understanding is.
Now you can patch the hole yourself by looking up utility-scoring. Alternately, I could have anticipated that not all readers would know about utility-scoring, and explained that in an “earlier chapter”, but it doesn’t fundamentally undermine the value of specificity and mind-anchors to teach concepts better.
I have serious reservations that any experience that can’t be traded on a market has any value that can accurately be dominated in dollars.
It triggers an impulse in me that this is a minor technical flaw that should be overlooked but it increases my cognitive burden and lowers my confidence that the author knows what they are talking about. Sticking your neck out is great. But making the thing long and the parts depend on each other makes errors compond.
In making a claim of “you would have been stuck on any explanation of “avoid the sunk-cost fallacy” until you understand how that kind of utility-scoring works” you are implying that it can not be explained without such scoring. I guess I couldn’t in reality read the explanation of the fallacy on a clean slate because I already know about it beforehand. But science popularisers sometimes make misrepresentations in making curves straight. The good intention doesn’t make up spreading misinformation.
But if you’re stuck on how to model driving through the blizzard as having a utility-value of
-$100
, it means that you would have been stuck on any explanation of “avoid the sunk-cost fallacy” until you understand how that kind of utility-scoring works.So the specific example was superior to the general statement in revealing where the remaining hole in your understanding is.
Now you can patch the hole yourself by looking up utility-scoring. Alternately, I could have anticipated that not all readers would know about utility-scoring, and explained that in an “earlier chapter”, but it doesn’t fundamentally undermine the value of specificity and mind-anchors to teach concepts better.
I have serious reservations that any experience that can’t be traded on a market has any value that can accurately be dominated in dollars. It triggers an impulse in me that this is a minor technical flaw that should be overlooked but it increases my cognitive burden and lowers my confidence that the author knows what they are talking about. Sticking your neck out is great. But making the thing long and the parts depend on each other makes errors compond.
In making a claim of “you would have been stuck on any explanation of “avoid the sunk-cost fallacy” until you understand how that kind of utility-scoring works” you are implying that it can not be explained without such scoring. I guess I couldn’t in reality read the explanation of the fallacy on a clean slate because I already know about it beforehand. But science popularisers sometimes make misrepresentations in making curves straight. The good intention doesn’t make up spreading misinformation.