The concrete example seems just an example of scope insensitivity?
I don’t trust the analysis of point (2) in the concrete example. It seems plausible turning off the wifi has a bunch of second-order effects, like making various wifi-connected devices not to run various computations happening when online. Consumption of the router could be smaller part of the effect. It’s also quite possible this is not the case, but it’s hard to say without experiments.
I would guess most aspiring rationalists are prone to something like an “inverse salt in pasta water fallacy”: doing a Fermi estimate like the one described, concluding that everyone is stupid, and stopping to add salt to pasta water.
but actually people add salt to pasta water because of the taste
it’s plausible salt actually decreases cooking time (or increases cooking time) - but the dominant effect will be chemical interaction with the food. Salt makes some food easier to cook or harder to cook
overall, focusing on proving something about the non-dominant effect … is not great
I’m actually more interested in reverse salted pasta water fallacies! It’s an extension of Chesterton’s Fence, but with an added twist where the fence has a sign with an incorrect explanation of what the fence is for.
In the language of Bayes, we might think of it thus:
E = The purpose of the fence stated on the sign
H = The actual purpose of the fence is the stated one
The fallacy would simply be ascribing too high a prior value of P(H), at least within a certain reference class.
Potentially, that might be caused by rationalists tailoring their environment such that a high P(H) is a reasonable default assumption almost all the time in their lived experience. Think a bunch of SWE autistics who hang out with each other and form a culture centered on promoting literal precise statements. For them, P(H) is very high for the signs they’ll typically encounter.
The failure mode is not noticing when you’re outside the samples distribution of life circumstances—when you’re thinking about the world outside rationalist culture. It may not have a lower truth content, but it may have lower literalism. But there’s not always a clear division between them, and anyway, insisting on literalism and interrogating the false premises of mainstream culture is a way of expanding the boundaries of rationalist culture.
the second-order effects of turning off the WiFi are surely comprised of both positive and negative effects, and i have no idea which valence it nets out to.
these days homes contain devices whose interconnectedness is used to more efficiently regulate power use. for example, the classic utility-controlled water heater, which reduces power draw when electricity is more expensive for the utility company (i.e. when peakers would need to come online). water heaters mostly don’t use WiFi but thermostats like Nest, programmable light bulbs, etc do: when you disrupt that connection, in which direction is power use more likely to change?
i have my phone programmed so that when i go to bed (put it in the “i’m sleeping” Do Not Disturb mode) it will automatically turn off all the outlets and devices — like my TV, game consoles, garage space heater — which i only use during the day. leaving any one of these on for just one night would cancel weeks of gains from disabling WiFi.
The concrete example seems just an example of scope insensitivity?
I don’t trust the analysis of point (2) in the concrete example. It seems plausible turning off the wifi has a bunch of second-order effects, like making various wifi-connected devices not to run various computations happening when online. Consumption of the router could be smaller part of the effect. It’s also quite possible this is not the case, but it’s hard to say without experiments.
I would guess most aspiring rationalists are prone to something like an “inverse salt in pasta water fallacy”: doing a Fermi estimate like the one described, concluding that everyone is stupid, and stopping to add salt to pasta water.
but actually people add salt to pasta water because of the taste
it’s plausible salt actually decreases cooking time (or increases cooking time) - but the dominant effect will be chemical interaction with the food. Salt makes some food easier to cook or harder to cook
overall, focusing on proving something about the non-dominant effect … is not great
I’m actually more interested in reverse salted pasta water fallacies! It’s an extension of Chesterton’s Fence, but with an added twist where the fence has a sign with an incorrect explanation of what the fence is for.
In the language of Bayes, we might think of it thus:
E = The purpose of the fence stated on the sign H = The actual purpose of the fence is the stated one
The fallacy would simply be ascribing too high a prior value of P(H), at least within a certain reference class.
Potentially, that might be caused by rationalists tailoring their environment such that a high P(H) is a reasonable default assumption almost all the time in their lived experience. Think a bunch of SWE autistics who hang out with each other and form a culture centered on promoting literal precise statements. For them, P(H) is very high for the signs they’ll typically encounter.
The failure mode is not noticing when you’re outside the samples distribution of life circumstances—when you’re thinking about the world outside rationalist culture. It may not have a lower truth content, but it may have lower literalism. But there’s not always a clear division between them, and anyway, insisting on literalism and interrogating the false premises of mainstream culture is a way of expanding the boundaries of rationalist culture.
the second-order effects of turning off the WiFi are surely comprised of both positive and negative effects, and i have no idea which valence it nets out to.
these days homes contain devices whose interconnectedness is used to more efficiently regulate power use. for example, the classic utility-controlled water heater, which reduces power draw when electricity is more expensive for the utility company (i.e. when peakers would need to come online). water heaters mostly don’t use WiFi but thermostats like Nest, programmable light bulbs, etc do: when you disrupt that connection, in which direction is power use more likely to change?
i have my phone programmed so that when i go to bed (put it in the “i’m sleeping” Do Not Disturb mode) it will automatically turn off all the outlets and devices — like my TV, game consoles, garage space heater — which i only use during the day. leaving any one of these on for just one night would cancel weeks of gains from disabling WiFi.