Curated. This does indeed seem like a common kind of bad argument around these parts which has not yet been named. I also appreciate Rohin’s comment pointing out that it’s not obvious what makes this kind of reasoning bad, as well as David Manheim’s comment saying that what is needed is a way to distinguish cases when bounded search works well from cases where bounded search works poorly. More generally, I like content being posted that are about evaluating a kind of reasoning that is common, especially of the sort that inspires interesting engagement and/or disagreement in the replies. I would be excited to see more case studies in when this sort of reasoning works well or poorly, and maybe even a general theory to help us decide when this kind of reasoning tends to work out well, eg, when implemented by superforecasters on many topics.
Curated. This does indeed seem like a common kind of bad argument around these parts which has not yet been named. I also appreciate Rohin’s comment pointing out that it’s not obvious what makes this kind of reasoning bad, as well as David Manheim’s comment saying that what is needed is a way to distinguish cases when bounded search works well from cases where bounded search works poorly. More generally, I like content being posted that are about evaluating a kind of reasoning that is common, especially of the sort that inspires interesting engagement and/or disagreement in the replies. I would be excited to see more case studies in when this sort of reasoning works well or poorly, and maybe even a general theory to help us decide when this kind of reasoning tends to work out well, eg, when implemented by superforecasters on many topics.