AndHisHorse

Karma: 506

AndHisHorse 3 Sep 2013 11:17 UTC
24 points
in reply to: Stabilizer’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2013
Not necessarily a great metric; working on the second-most-probable theory can be the best rational decision if the expected value of working on the most probable theory is lower due to greater cost or lower reward.

AndHisHorse 10 Nov 2013 18:46 UTC
16 points
in reply to: Nic_Smith’s comment on: Rationality Quotes November 2013
That is true. There are some things that we cannot do. There are some things that we cannot do yet. There are some things that we can do, but have not.

The objection to the quote is that it seems to place “moving Mt. Fuji”, as an example of some larger class, in the first class not arbitrarily, but in spite of the evidence (the fact that the audience has come up with an answer, if indeed they have). While the surrounding article makes a good point, the quote in isolation smacks of irrational defeatism.

As an alternative to the quote, I propose the following:

How would you move Mount Fuji?

Take some time. Think about it.

Got an answer?

I’ll bet it’s tremendously expensive, potentially devastating to the surrounding landscape, and requires the improbable cooperation of a lot of other entities.

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to go around it instead?

AndHisHorse 2 Oct 2017 22:07 UTC
15 points
on: What are some Meta-Umeshsims?
It seems like there’s really just one base Umeshism: “If you have not encountered adverse consequences, you have sunk too much value into mitigating risk.”
I don’t agree with this general form in all possible permutations; it could be instantiated as “If you’ve never been killed by a car, you’ve spent too much time looking both ways”, and there doesn’t seem to be a distinction contained in the structure that separates that example and other, less obviously wrong instantiations.
Perhaps the appropriate lesson is “If you are investing in avoiding adverse consequences, but have never suffered them, consider that you may be sacrificing too much for the sake of risk aversion.” A general instruction to update in a particular direction on the proper balance between risk aversion and reward seeking, but not an absolute. However, in order to believe that, I’d like to see some evidence that the modal member of the target audience is actually overestimating the risks they want to avoid to such a degree that advice to indiscriminately avoid risk less would actually be helpful.

AndHisHorse 3 May 2014 7:57 UTC
13 points
in reply to: roystgnr’s comment on: Rationality Quotes May 2014
Experiments can fail if they are executed or planned improperly. If both the control and the experimental group are given sugar pills, for example, or the equipment fails in a shower of sparks, the experiment has provided no evidence by which one can update. It is a small quibble, and probably not what the quote meant to illustrate (I’m guessing that the experiment provided evidence which downgraded the probability of the hypothesis), but something to note nonetheless: experiments are not magic knowledge-providers.

AndHisHorse 5 Feb 2018 13:42 UTC
12 points
on: Beware Social Coping Strategies
In addition to enjoying the content, I liked the illustrations, which I did not find necessary for understanding but which did break up the text nicely. I encourage you to continue using them.

AndHisHorse 26 May 2017 12:39 UTC
12 points
in reply to: [DEACTIVATED] Duncan Sabien’s comment on: Dragon Army: Theory & Charter (30min read)
From the skeptical side, I would strongly suggest committing to a publicly visible schedule for updates, reports on transitions (e.g. out of bootcamp), and a final report. The outside world would be well served by knowing how this turns out, and having a schedule which is evidently independent of considerations such as “is this currently going well” would do a great deal to reassure us that we will know in time.

AndHisHorse 2 Sep 2013 5:03 UTC
12 points
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2013
Yes, but it can be either a bad sign about what you’re trying to talk yourself into, or about your state of mind. It simply means that your previous position was held strongly—not because of strong rational evidence alone, because stronger evidence can override that—the act of assimilating the information precludes talking yourself into it. If you have to talk yourself into something, it probably means that there is an irrational aspect to your attachment to the alternative.

And that irrational, often emotional attachment can be either right or wrong; were this not true, gut feeling would answer every question truthfully, and the first plausible explanation one could think of would always be correct.

AndHisHorse 4 Aug 2013 23:23 UTC
12 points
in reply to: gothgirl420666’s comment on: Rationality Quotes August 2013
While I respect your right to do so, I find such a concept aesthetically horrifying.

AndHisHorse 25 Dec 2023 2:43 UTC
11 points
4
on: Constellations are Younger than Continents
Perhaps, in a parallel to the kings earlier mentioned, this could be interpreted as Orion having seen the fortunes of continents rise and fall. Orion has seen the prominence of Africa as the source of humanity, and its subjugation by Europe; it has seen the isolation and the global power of the Americas; it has seen the mercantile empires of the West and its dark ages.

AndHisHorse 26 Sep 2017 23:40 UTC
11 points
on: Wikipedia pageviews: still in decline
I am someone who has found that I’m using Wikipedia less, and I find that I’m relying more on Google than I used to, for what I used to use Wikipedia for. In particular, Featured Snippets in Search (which will often pull an excerpt from a Wikipedia article!) are a fantastic substitute for quick questions that I would, in past years, have asked Wikipedia, although it isn’t a substitute for a deeper exploration.

AndHisHorse 21 Aug 2013 21:56 UTC
11 points
in reply to: Kindly’s comment on: Rationality Quotes August 2013
Sharp membership boundaries, however, often result in people forgetting the fuzziness of the concept—there are some people who vote without being responsible adults, because they can; an essay can be boring and rambling at 450 words or impressive and concise at 600; and food can be good a bit past its expiration date (it doesn’t usually go in the other direction in my experience, presumably because the risk of eating spoiled food vastly outweighs the risk of mistakenly tossing out good food, so expiration dates are the very early estimates).

AndHisHorse 5 Apr 2018 17:15 UTC
10 points
in reply to: Luke A Somers’s comment on: Global insect declines: Why aren’t we all dead yet?
Not entirely true; low sperm counts are associated with low male fertility in part because sperm carry enzymes which clear the way for other sperm—so a single sperm isn’t going to get very far.

AndHisHorse 14 Nov 2013 20:44 UTC
10 points
in reply to: Jayson_Virissimo’s comment on: Rationality Quotes November 2013
Presumably, a wise implementation of this quote would consider a continuum of remedies, ranging from mild treatment of symptoms to vaccination against the possibility of ever contracting the ailment. Even if there is no cure for an ailment, there is still value in mitigating its negative effects.

AndHisHorse 9 Nov 2013 18:07 UTC
10 points
in reply to: arundelo’s comment on: Rationality Quotes November 2013
Saying that something is ineffable and saying that nothing we can say is meaningful without the exact same shared experience are rather different things. To use your own example, comparision is possible—so we can imperfectly describe chocolate in terms of sugar and (depending on the type) bitterness, even if our audience has never heard of chocolate.

Conveniently, this allows us to roughly fathom experiences that nobody has ever had. Playwrights, for example, set out to create an experience that does not yet exist and prompt actors to react to situations they have never lived through, and through their capability to generalize they can imperfectly communicate their ideas.

AndHisHorse 4 Aug 2013 19:18 UTC
10 points
in reply to: FiftyTwo’s comment on: Rationality Quotes August 2013
Then, to continue the metaphor, we should study it by telescope from afar, not as a present and influential entity in our own sphere of existence, but rather a distant body, informative but impotent, the object of curiosity rather than devotion.

AndHisHorse 9 Dec 2017 15:21 UTC
8 points
on: Rules of variety
Perhaps part of the desire to avoid conformity is a desire to avoid comparability, for fear of where one might end up in a comparison.
If I am one of one hundred people doing the same thing in the same way—working on a particular part of an important problem, or embracing a very specific style—I run the psychological risk of discovering that I am strictly worse than a large number of other people.
If, instead, I am one of one hundred people doing different things in different ways, things about me—the skills I bring to bear on the problem—cannot easily be compared and found wanting. I am protected from the threat to my self-esteem by the confusion of the variety in approaches, which I can easily blame even if my efforts produce results which are comparable and inferior to others’.

AndHisHorse 29 Sep 2017 13:15 UTC
8 points
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Moderator’s Dilemma: The Risks of Partial Intervention
> If you say “food weights must be within 3% of what’s on the packaging”, then they’ll be 3% below.
I would guess that setting this sort of regulation takes this into account, and the process for devising it must be accordingly more complicated.
The way the regulatory agency ought to get this number (note: I have no relevant background or experience, so this is all wild guessing) might look something like:
- Estimate the cost to the supplier of determining the weight of a package as a function of average accuracy. For example, it may cost $0.01 per package to determine the weight with a standard deviation of 1%, $0.04 for std dev of 0.5%, etc.
- ‎Estimate the cost to the consumer of inaccurate package weights (which could just be linear, as in a package which is 3% underweight may be 3% undervalue, but for large inaccuracies and certain products—like medicine—can be different).
- ‎Find some balance between costs to the supplier (taking into account, perhaps, that such costs may be different for large suppliers with enough throughput to easily absorb the fixed cost and small suppliers which will face a daunting up-front cost) and the consumer (taking into account, perhaps, that some consumers may be more sensitive than others to inaccuracies).
In such a case, the average inaccuracy wouldn’t be 3%; if the supplier had the capability to calculate their weights so exactly that every package was no more or less than 3% underweight, the regulatory agency would presumably insist on 0% inaccuracy. Instead, the supplier would pick an inaccuracy between 0% and 3% such that they would be certain that enough of their packages would be less than 3% inaccurate.
Any supplier which did not do so wisely might get away with it for a time, but would eventually put out a sub-par product and presumably be penalized for it. Even a self-interested person will build a margin of error to ensure that they are never found to be noncompliant. These margins may be different for different suppliers—if the agency makes regulations with the intent of keeping barriers to entry low, it will allow a wider margin of error so as not to exclude potential suppliers without affordable access to super-precise measurement technology, allowing suppliers with it to choose an inaccuracy which is allowed by regulation but still safe for them. While more difficult, a remedy to this issue may be to additionally regulate on intent (e.g. an internal email saying “let’s aim for 2% inaccuracy, we can get away with it” would be evidence of wrongdoing) or known ability (e.g. holding suppliers with better measurement capability to a higher standard).
To return to forum posting: rational trolls will not break every unwritten rule while perfectly respecting all of the written ones, because they likely can’t be precise enough to do so consistently. Irrational trolls will try, fail, and be punished for it. Some trolls are better at staying close to the line without crossing it than others; moderators may want to hold these folks to higher standards or simply add a provision to punish those they believe to be acting within the rules but without good faith.

AndHisHorse 5 Jun 2014 22:58 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Punoxysm’s comment on: Rationality Quotes June 2014
It’s reasonable to update as a result of the analysis of fiction (including fanfiction) for two reasons, neither of which are directly related to the events of the story in the same way that events in real life are related to updating. The first is: does this prompt me to think in a way I did not before? If so, it is not evidence, but it allows you to better way the evidence by providing you with more possibilities. The second is: why was this written? Even a truthless piece of propaganda can be interesting evidence in that it is entangled with human actions and motivations.

AndHisHorse 16 Dec 2013 9:26 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Aleksei_Riikonen’s comment on: Epilogue: Atonement (8/8)
Regardless of his past, if he’s been around since before this modern era—a period so long that the tradition of a century being a prerequisite for master is well-established—he’s had enough time to rewrite his brain many times over with natural processes alone, never mind psychiatric medication, psychological counseling, or other forms of modification. He’s had more time for personal growth than any other human that has existed (in the real world).

“People change” is an understatement here. I would go so far as to say that, through incremental change, the Confessor is an entirely different person from the younger man in his history, connected by a long causal chain and a continued possession of the same body, but nothing else.

AndHisHorse 2 Sep 2013 16:30 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2013
Facts alone are fairly useless without processes for using them to gather more. A piece of paper can have facts inscribed upon it more durably than the human mind can, yet we rely on the latter rather than the former to guide us through life because it is capable of using those facts, not merely possessing them.