I dont really think it would work like that. My understanding of anchoring is that they think 40 and then search for the nearest reasonable answer and whether that’s above or below the number correlates to their initial internal beliefs about the value in question. That is to say, if he originally thought it was ten, he would think 40, and then consider (subconsciously) all numbers between 40 and zero in decreasing order. I expect he would stop no earlier than 20 (or maybe as low as 15 :D).
ahartell
I disagree. I suppose it may slightly increase the probability of the “more than 40” answer, but his prior expectations have to play some role. Since there would be no other real factors, the effect of his prior expectation would in my opinion shift his answer downwards, yielding the “less than 40″ answer. Anchoring pulls you towards the suggested value, but I’m not sure in this case it would pull it ABOVE the suggested value, especially given the difference between his original beliefs and the anchor.
I think the reason that it’s considered funny is that, while many consider racists stupid, it is almost unbelievably silly to think of someone as sub-human because of their hair color. It is true that I haven’t actually experienced prejudice of this kind but many of my red-haired friends routinely make ginger related jokes. At least in my circles, racism against red-haired people is entirely ironic.
It might be worth noting that we were first exposed to anti-ginger feelings though humor, not from any legitimately racist source.
Sorry if I’m just being stupid, but why does this go against the hypothesis of subjects “start[ing] from the anchor and continu[ing] in the direction of his/her unbiased estimate, but [not going] far enough.” While the percentages are vastly different, the favored option is the same between biased and unbiased groups in both cases.
Also, and sorry if this seems like nitpicking, but in the example we talked about in the Mental Metadata I imagine the subject would have a much stronger feeling about their expected values than in these cases. That aside, interesting experiment.
Yeah, I noticed that soon after posting but figured it would be kind of silly to edit out almost my entire post. And deleting it just seemed like a sort of suspicious behavior (considering that I was wrong).
Yeah, I noticed that soon after posting but figured it would be kind of silly to edit out almost my entire post. And deleting it just seemed like a sort of suspicious behavior (considering that I was wrong).
I had a similar experience when I heard of this experiment, but when it was mentioned on reddit a few weeks back the link to the original research was included. I remember reading it and wondering if I had been using the word slouch wrong all of my life or if people were misrepresenting the article completely.
Wait, since when was suicide considered more sinful than murder? Do you mean killing an in-group member vs. killing an out-group member?
Interesting idea though; I’ve never thought about myself an anything other than an individual despite knowing that I’m not ultimately unique in the grand scheme of things.
“I agree with Robin Hanson that if two instances of me exist, and one is terminated, I didn’t die, I simply got smaller.” This reminds my a lot of Eliezer’s crossover fanfic. You should check it out.
Could all of the Exercise posts be put into a sequence or (even better) somehow linked with the posts they are exercises for? I’m still working through the sequences, and I dont want to lose track of these posts before I even reach a point where I can do them.
Awesome :)
There is sort of something like this already, no? There aren’t 2 different types of Karma, but my understanding that a post (not in the discussion area) will garner 10 karma points per upvote. Assuming you are posting your more serious and valuable ideas in post form, they are 10 times more impactful on your karma than your random kinda neat comments.
It says on the video that it’s from February 2010
The experimental evidence for a purely genetic component of 0.6-0.8 is overwhelming
Does anyone know the source for this?
It’s ok :)
I think this statement hold truer for individuals whose competitive advantage is best suited for a high salary career. It seems the OP is inclined towards science, so it makes sense to go into a scientific field, again one that plays to the individual’s competitive advantage. I personally wouldn’t know what to suggest, though. Porter’s idea looks good, assuming there is a noticeable gap in SENS’ research that they aren’t actively trying to fill. As a Junior in High School, I’ve actually been thinking about this quite a bit, and I would also like to go into life extension or cryonics work.
It would also exclude humans if we enhanced ourselves beyond mutating. This seems to me a much stronger counter example.
Not that this is important at all, but the lyrics to the song are a bit different (and better). The difference stems from the blog post being posted more than a year before the song was released. I’m not going to go through it but two examples can be seen in the following quotations:
Original
...My senses and my faculties are super-computing factories. Auditory, mesmerizers, Touch and taste, olfactory Digitized into data streams that register but will not delete. They’ll store it up on carbon atoms lined up into nano-diamonds, Priced just right for maximizing special year end price surprises… You could be Giant Squirrel, a statue or a talking cat. The Goodyear blimp, an etch a sketch, An octopus or a yoga mat...
vs.
The Actual Song
...My senses and my faculties I’ll augment with machinery. Auditory, optical, touch, and taste, olfactory Converted into data streams and floating bits of binary … You could be Giant Squirrel, a statue or a talking cat The Goodyear blimp, an etch a sketch, An octopus or a brain in a vat.
Anyway I quite like the song.
Here’s a link to listen to the Bright Eyes’ Singularity song. I still prefer The Lisp’s Singularity.
One thing to gain from rationality, apart from what you mentioned, is a firmer understanding (and real belief) in reductionism. This can apply to pretty much anything, and I think for me contributed to a new understanding of consciousness. On the topic of how it has lead me to realize I was wrong about something, it’s helped by tons of times. Sometimes I’ll find myself in an argument resisting what the other person has to say and then I notice how silly that is and I consider whether I need to update. I’ve changed my mind about a number of mostly trivial things in this manner. Rationality (and less wrong in particular) helped me understand that winning an argument by stubbornly remaining wrong isn’t really winning, and that has benefited me greatly. It can also help us be more strategic, and I think I’ve become a bit better at planning. I know some of this might not answer your question exactly, but it’s a mainly response to your title.
I would definitely say it has value, and I think you have the potential to make this really enjoyable. Unless you have an insane amount of free time, though, I think it would be a good idea for this to be more of a shared effort.