Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!): The author gives examples where their internal mental model suggested one conclusion, but a low-information heuristic like expert or market consensus differed, so they deferred. This included:
Valuing Theorem equity over Wave equity, despite Wave’s founders being very resourceful and adding users at a huge pace.
In the early days of Covid, dismissing it despite exponential growth and asymptomatic spread seeming intrinsically scary.
Another common case of this principle is assuming something won’t work in a particular case, because the stats for the general case are bad. (eg. ‘90% of startups fail—why would this one succeed?’), or assuming something will happen similarly to past situations.
Because the largest impact comes from outlier situations, outperforming these heuristics is important. The author suggests that for important decisions people should build a gears-level model of the decision, put substantial time into building an inside view, and use heuristics to stress test those views. They also suggest being ambitious, particularly when it’s high upside and low downside.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
The author gives examples where their internal mental model suggested one conclusion, but a low-information heuristic like expert or market consensus differed, so they deferred. This included:
Valuing Theorem equity over Wave equity, despite Wave’s founders being very resourceful and adding users at a huge pace.
In the early days of Covid, dismissing it despite exponential growth and asymptomatic spread seeming intrinsically scary.
Another common case of this principle is assuming something won’t work in a particular case, because the stats for the general case are bad. (eg. ‘90% of startups fail—why would this one succeed?’), or assuming something will happen similarly to past situations.
Because the largest impact comes from outlier situations, outperforming these heuristics is important. The author suggests that for important decisions people should build a gears-level model of the decision, put substantial time into building an inside view, and use heuristics to stress test those views. They also suggest being ambitious, particularly when it’s high upside and low downside.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)