I think a common mistake on LW is to mistake emotional confidence (which comes from believing deeply internalizing emotional schemas ike (I’m capable, I’m worthy, I’m enough) with epistemic confidence “I’m 80% sure my current plan will work, I’m 70% sure about this particular fact”
That is, I think this article has causality a bit backwards. You think that being competent helps you be “overconfident”. I think that your belief that you’re competent IS the thing that you want.
Posts like this are correct on the emotional confidence stuff. In turn, more of them could link to Conviction without self-deception. (Or maybe the good kind of “self-deception” is less “sky is green” , and more “using Newtonian physics instead of quantum physics to build an airplane”.)
I haven’t read Nates post in a while, but if I remember correctly it sort of makes the same conflation between epistemic confidence and emotional confidence.
I think a common mistake on LW is to mistake emotional confidence (which comes from believing deeply internalizing emotional schemas ike (I’m capable, I’m worthy, I’m enough) with epistemic confidence “I’m 80% sure my current plan will work, I’m 70% sure about this particular fact”
That is, I think this article has causality a bit backwards. You think that being competent helps you be “overconfident”. I think that your belief that you’re competent IS the thing that you want.
Posts like this are correct on the emotional confidence stuff. In turn, more of them could link to Conviction without self-deception. (Or maybe the good kind of “self-deception” is less “sky is green” , and more “using Newtonian physics instead of quantum physics to build an airplane”.)
I haven’t read Nates post in a while, but if I remember correctly it sort of makes the same conflation between epistemic confidence and emotional confidence.