I agree with ‘more testing and evidence, please’, but you often come across as adversarial and I think that generally makes it harder for you to convince the people you want to convince.
As an aside, remember that the minicamp was a relatively unplanned event; it came about because SIAI had extra time and space. I will be more concerned if the megacamp has a similar lack of testing.
I agree with ‘more testing and evidence, please’, but you often come across as adversarial and I think that generally makes it harder for you to convince the people you want to convince.
Well, I hope they’re not relying on “Silas is a meanie” as their intellectual “covering fire” for not substantiating this claim. And it’s not that I want more testing and evidence, I just want to see what they think proves its success.
As an aside, remember that the minicamp was a relatively unplanned event; it came about because SIAI had extra time and space.
True, but I wouldn’t be asking for any of this if leaders didn’t try to paint it afterwards as a major success. If they want to take a risky venture, fine. If they want to play, “I meant to do that”, let’s see what it accomplished.
I’m not talking about ‘covering fire’. If your goal is to win an argument or appear righteous, then your strategy is alright. If your goal is to actually get SIAI to change their behavior, then your language is hurting your cause. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to change their behavior, and it’s psychologically much easier to do something because an ally asks than because an adversary asks.
You have seen evidence: both Guy (link) and I (link) posted ‘lessons learned’ for the minicamp. You are right to say this is not especially strong evidence, but it is evidence. I think it would have been good to video tape some of the sessions and post them and post the exit surveys (they took testimonials too).
If your goal is to win an argument or appear righteous, then your strategy is alright.
No, it clearly isn’t. He left himself wide open to this sort of attack.
More fundamentally he justified and explained himself. He did it reasonably well and a good justification can work but it is almost never the optimal strategy.
Sure, and I regularly do (“Well, if situation X seems like it would produce anecdote Y, then all anecdote Y shows us is that situation X happened, not that contention Z is necessarily true—only if situation X shows us that contention Z is true”).
I would surmise that not all commentors are willing to be that forgiving.
And how else should I update after reading two self-selected, subjective assessments? This has a perfectly reasonable Bayesian interpretation.
EDIT: Also note that the grandparent was posted before AnnaSalamon actually fixed the problem at hand.
EDIT x2: And while I’m endlessly editing this comment, let me note that most of this drama could have been averted if someone had just posted the damn data instead of coming up with multiple, bad excuses. Lots of guilty parties, only a couple heroes (in my book, at least).
And how else should I update after reading two self-selected, subjective assessments?
Very little. I was explaining why your comment was downvoted so much. I said “technically inaccurate” as opposed to “wrong” because I am sympathetic to your point of view; it is almost no data. But it is a little bit of data.
remember that the minicamp was a relatively unplanned event; it came about because SIAI had extra time and space. I will be more concerned if the megacamp has a similar lack of testing.
As far as I can tell, the mega-camp actually had even less testing than the mini-camp. I did leave before the last week though, so I can’t be sure quite what was done then. We had a discussion at the beginning about how we would decide if the camp had been a success, but I don’t think we came to any very satisfactory conclusions.
I agree with ‘more testing and evidence, please’, but you often come across as adversarial and I think that generally makes it harder for you to convince the people you want to convince.
As an aside, remember that the minicamp was a relatively unplanned event; it came about because SIAI had extra time and space. I will be more concerned if the megacamp has a similar lack of testing.
Well, I hope they’re not relying on “Silas is a meanie” as their intellectual “covering fire” for not substantiating this claim. And it’s not that I want more testing and evidence, I just want to see what they think proves its success.
True, but I wouldn’t be asking for any of this if leaders didn’t try to paint it afterwards as a major success. If they want to take a risky venture, fine. If they want to play, “I meant to do that”, let’s see what it accomplished.
I’m not talking about ‘covering fire’. If your goal is to win an argument or appear righteous, then your strategy is alright. If your goal is to actually get SIAI to change their behavior, then your language is hurting your cause. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to change their behavior, and it’s psychologically much easier to do something because an ally asks than because an adversary asks.
You have seen evidence: both Guy (link) and I (link) posted ‘lessons learned’ for the minicamp. You are right to say this is not especially strong evidence, but it is evidence. I think it would have been good to video tape some of the sessions and post them and post the exit surveys (they took testimonials too).
No, it clearly isn’t. He left himself wide open to this sort of attack.
More fundamentally he justified and explained himself. He did it reasonably well and a good justification can work but it is almost never the optimal strategy.
Data is not the plural of anecdote.
(That quote is commonly used by Science and is technically inaccurate under Bayes, in case you were wondering.)
Can we be forgiving and assume that multiple anecdotes fail because they have a consistent bias related to how they are obtained?
Sure, and I regularly do (“Well, if situation X seems like it would produce anecdote Y, then all anecdote Y shows us is that situation X happened, not that contention Z is necessarily true—only if situation X shows us that contention Z is true”).
I would surmise that not all commentors are willing to be that forgiving.
And how else should I update after reading two self-selected, subjective assessments? This has a perfectly reasonable Bayesian interpretation.
EDIT: Also note that the grandparent was posted before AnnaSalamon actually fixed the problem at hand.
EDIT x2: And while I’m endlessly editing this comment, let me note that most of this drama could have been averted if someone had just posted the damn data instead of coming up with multiple, bad excuses. Lots of guilty parties, only a couple heroes (in my book, at least).
Very little. I was explaining why your comment was downvoted so much. I said “technically inaccurate” as opposed to “wrong” because I am sympathetic to your point of view; it is almost no data. But it is a little bit of data.
As far as I can tell, the mega-camp actually had even less testing than the mini-camp. I did leave before the last week though, so I can’t be sure quite what was done then. We had a discussion at the beginning about how we would decide if the camp had been a success, but I don’t think we came to any very satisfactory conclusions.
It’s been almost a month, and nothing. I think a bit of contrarianism is warranted.
I don’t think that number is correct.
Silas’ original comment was August 1, and it’s nearly the end of August.
Perhaps I want payday to come too dearly. Eh.
Did paper-machine get downvoted for admitting he said something hastily, and correcting it to be accurate and precise? People are weird.
Head honcho promotes SIAI insider. Annoying guy asks for evidence of insider’s successes. Imagine how some people are going to vote on that.
I really wish I had my PGP key here. You’ve earned yourself some papermachine points.
EDIT: