From Omnilibrium:
cleonid
The seeming irrationality of the customers choice may disappear after the cost of decision-making is taken into account.
In our daily life we are constantly required to estimate trade-offs between things that are very difficult to quantify (e.g. pleasure of wearing a new jacket—money that has to be paid – extra hours of work to earn this money - …). Hence using simple subconscious heuristics (such as “improving the trade-off by 50% is worthy of your time, 5% is not”) is very helpful. A constant search for an optimal solution would make a nightmare out of our every decision, which is hardly worth an occasional 5$ saving.
In this specific example, I believe that increasing the price differentials would have justified an additional mental effort, leading more people to the “optimal choice”.
To promote rational rather than emotional discussion, one should avoid argumentum ad Hitlerum. The general point seems to be unrelated to Nazism, so I propose rewriting the post using a more neutral background story. Something like
“You are General Grant. It is 1865. Colonel Y proposes to outlaw Democratic Party for its support of slavery...”
“You’re using rationalist methods to support religion”
Thank you very much for the compliment. However, it is totally undeserved. Being essentially an atheist (well, agnostic to be precise), supporting religion was the last thing on my mind. What I really wanted to do is to test how rational and intelligent people, which I hoped would be overrepresented on this forum, would react to arguments that go against their preferred view.
It is interesting that everyone seems to assume that I am a religious person myself, though I thought the contrary should be pretty obvious from the post title. Personally, I have yet to meet people who would call their beliefs “irrational”.
The website is intended for discussion of all ideologically divisive issues that are currently avoided on LW (economic policies, historical analysis etc.).
It is claimed that Golda Meir once requested Nixon not to appoint jews as his delegates in Israel. There was a strong feeling in Israel that to avoid accusations of bias, delegates who happen to be jewish tend to lean the other way instead.
In general, how can we be sure that by “correcting” subconscious associations, we really shift our subconscious towards rationality rather than suppress what those around us consider a “thoughtcrime”?
From Omnilibrium:
Recent discussion topics on Omnilibrium:
Recent discussion topics on Omnilibrium:
I’m very doubtful about the validity of the IAT test. Their procedure requires you to declare your ethnicity prior to the testing. Depending on the answer they change the test ordering. When I declared an incorrect ethnicity, the test results claimed that I hate my own ethnic group.
While this may not be enough to invalidate the whole idea, it makes me wonder why they did not design the test in a way that would be totally insensitive to the subjects race. Too often I see sociologists design the tests in a way that will ensure the final results.
I believe this is not quite correct. Predestination does not imply that actions do not predetermine the consequences (i.e. “no righteous man can be saved without the grace of God”). Rather it implies that actions themselves are predetermined (i.e. “no man can become righteous without the grace of God”).
To quote Luther: ” God is said to hate men before they are born, because, He foreknows that they WILL DO that which WILL MERIT hatred”.
It’s an interesting possibility. But I have looked at the data and for all ten users the comments above 1000 characters get higher average ratings than shorter comments.
Would statistical feedback on the style and content of your posts be useful to you?
[pollid:1010]
Opinion changes about grand things like a political doctrine may be difficult precisely because the opinions themselves are inconsequential. If I mistakenly vote for the party A instead of the party B, there are no personal consequences (my vote won’t change the outcome). By contrast, if I change my mind there are at least two negative consequences:
1) My ego will be hurt (I’ll have to admit that I was wrong before)
2) My friends and colleagues will be annoyed with me (statistically, friends and colleagues are likely to vote for the same party)