CM: This is where we differ. Because you’re doing a hypothetical. A brick falling on my head is not hypothetical.
I don’t know what to say lmao. He is not thinking clearly. This is triggering my “I can fix him” reflex. (I think I’d back up and explain how one can know that playing the lottery is usually a bad idea, and how to recognize the rare cases where it isn’t. He’s not thinking in a quantitative way about uncertainty. Which is understandable, because it is a rather twisty idea — the idea that uncertainty, the absence of knowledge itself, can be quantified and measured out in precise increments. Maybe I’d tell the story of Leibniz thinking rolling an 11 and rolling a 12 are equally likely when rolling a pair of dice; maybe I’d challenge him to think how that mistake could be rather significant if you made decisions on that basis, by analogy to the lottery. Then I’d proffer the notion that phrasing things in terms of gambling and betting is a metaphor; the real idea is broader, about trying to make the best decisions you can under conditions of uncertainty. And he’d object, so I’d tell the Tragedy of the Austrian Economists and their dogmatic commitment to frequentism; and how it’s good the modern-day experts have moved past that sort of thing.) I guess this sort of thing is what compelled Yudkowsky to write the Sequences.
Also, this is my first time reading anything at length from Michael Vassar, after reading lots of people say wildly varying things about him. My main impression is to wonder, why does he talk like that? Does he believe he is communicating clearly, or does he know he isn’t and doesn’t care? He is rather quick on his feet. My guess is that he enjoys the disarming effect that has on people, and he’s making a mistake in letting that enjoyment limit how much he effectively communicates, to the detriment of his other goals.
I don’t know what to say lmao. He is not thinking clearly. This is triggering my “I can fix him” reflex. (I think I’d back up and explain how one can know that playing the lottery is usually a bad idea, and how to recognize the rare cases where it isn’t. He’s not thinking in a quantitative way about uncertainty. Which is understandable, because it is a rather twisty idea — the idea that uncertainty, the absence of knowledge itself, can be quantified and measured out in precise increments. Maybe I’d tell the story of Leibniz thinking rolling an 11 and rolling a 12 are equally likely when rolling a pair of dice; maybe I’d challenge him to think how that mistake could be rather significant if you made decisions on that basis, by analogy to the lottery. Then I’d proffer the notion that phrasing things in terms of gambling and betting is a metaphor; the real idea is broader, about trying to make the best decisions you can under conditions of uncertainty. And he’d object, so I’d tell the Tragedy of the Austrian Economists and their dogmatic commitment to frequentism; and how it’s good the modern-day experts have moved past that sort of thing.) I guess this sort of thing is what compelled Yudkowsky to write the Sequences.
Also, this is my first time reading anything at length from Michael Vassar, after reading lots of people say wildly varying things about him. My main impression is to wonder, why does he talk like that? Does he believe he is communicating clearly, or does he know he isn’t and doesn’t care? He is rather quick on his feet. My guess is that he enjoys the disarming effect that has on people, and he’s making a mistake in letting that enjoyment limit how much he effectively communicates, to the detriment of his other goals.
Metz’s persona preys upon that reflex.