One good idea to take out of this is that other people’s ability to articulate their reasons for their belief can be weak—weak enough that it can distract from the strength of evidence for the actual belief. (More people can catch a ball than explain why it follows the arc that it does).
palladias
Karma: 3,227
I love GEB! For these kids, it’s not going to be a proof-based class. I’m more trying to get them to understand that stat is “a guide to how to update beliefs” rather than “a list of tests with sig/not sig outcomes.”
I have learned about Focusing from CFAR instructors and what you took away from it is what I took away as the core, useful thing. Even though this isn’t really how it was taught. The version I heard had a lot more focus on the physical sensations (which did bupkis for me) while the thing you described “Is it X?” did more.
I am interested but not planning to move to the Bay Area. I might move to Hyattsville, though: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/fareforward/2014/03/this-is-what-we-do/
have kids
polyamory
read fiction
earn to give
animal rights
I’d be interested to see your results!
And I wouldn’t invent a new name for ITTs for two reasons: First, you’re cutting down on the ability of people who are interested to find other examples, but not teaching them the commonly used name (and limiting how many ITT-interested people find you!). Second, I think the ITT name makes sense, Turing’s original example (which he called the Imitation Game) was basically an ITT for gender; it makes sense to keep the allusion.
Knowing where the AEDs are in your workplace is a good idea, too!
Yeah, I’d say so.
My job (not at the WSJ!) gave me The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics: The Dos and Don’ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and Figures in my new hire bundle, and I love it!
I think they’re all pretty exciting! Different forms of monasticism suit different people (and are vulnerable to different forms of doing them wrong) but I’m pretty happy to live in a world with chatty Dominicans wandering and teaching, contemplative orders meditating, etc.
I really liked some of the discussion of Orthodox spirituality in The Mountain of Silence.
With regard to the theological differences, the Orthodox and Catholic churches agree on most of the big things for day-to-day things (sacraments, etc) and, although there are disagreements (the filioque, etc) they’re more the kind of thing I’d need to get a theology degree in order to sort out for myself.
I published a book! And Amazon ran out on the second day of it’s release!
My book, Arriving At Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers that Even I Can Offer explains how I learned seven kinds of Catholic prayer after conversion.
I can promise it’s the LW-iest book you’ve got to read on prayer, so, if you want to better understand a religious friend or have some ways to open a conversation, you might like it. Plus it cites Ender’s Game and Terry Pratchett.
I had to learn prayer in the language of reference I spoke, so my chapter on Confession has a big section on the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and how it makes us afraid to make our sins “real” by acknowledging them. The chapter on Mass explains the communion of saints by referring to cartesian coordinate systems and explaining how people can all be aligned along one dimension of interest.
I had a great time writing this, and, I should mention, Beeminder helped me pull it off!
I think of irrationality as being stuck in a pocket universe. The real world is the way it is, but my biases/blind spots/false beliefs exile me to a smaller world, disconnected from the real one, and I want to correct my errors and return home.
In fact, it’s even worse than a pocket universe, because my actions take place in the real world. So every error can have consequences (imagine walking around, blind to trees, and how often you’d bonk your head)
In the US, the federal RFRA law (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) actually has a quasi-relevant test here. RFRA was passed when a ban on certain kinds of drugs kept Native Americans from using peyote in religious rituals, and Congress decided it wanted to re-balance how religious people could seek relief if a law wound up hampering their religious practice. The law wasn’t supposed to become a blank check, but it was supposed to give a way to carve out exemptions to neutrally written law (a la Alice doing the “normal” thing without specifically targeting the neighbor).
Here’s the test:
You can get an exemption IFF:
the law represents a “substantial burden” on religious practice
the law doesn’t further a “compelling” state interest
or, if it does, then the law isn’t the “least restrictive means” of serving that interest
I like this test, both for law and for interpersonal issues. So, if Alice were happy to use headphones instead, that might be a less restrictive means and she should do it. If the neighbor dislikes the noise, but isn’t “substantially burdened” then Alice might go on as she pleases.
All the terms of art (“substantially burden” “compelling interest” “least restrictive means”) have more precise definitions in law than in everyday life, but they give me a few helpful lenses for looking at a disagreement.
I’m sure you’ll see me pop up while researching :)
I’ve just started a job as a news writer at FiveThirtyEight (author archive here), I’m really looking forward to this, and I’d love for folks to think of me as a possibly-summonable research person. If you have a question/dataset/etc related to American news, send me an email (leahDOTlibrescoATgmailDOTcom) and I may wind up researching it and covering it.
The urge occured about as often as before, but when I did roll a one, I felt like I’d really lucked out. When I missed one, I felt good about having it settled, with no tsuris.
I’d tried Beeminding it before then (a cap per week) at it made it feel like I was using up my cookie slots when I went, muting my enjoyment, and meant I always spent a while mulling whether to go.
I try to structure questions so that they’ll be less vulnerable to shibboleth exploits (plus, some shammers do do a bit of research to be able to drop in jargon!).
One other approach to avoid constantly haggling with yourself (which I agree is draining and annoying) but without giving up the temptation completely is just to randomize whether you act on your urges.
At an old job, I used to want to go out to get a cookie in the afternoon a couple times a week. I didn’t want to act on the urge every time I felt it, but I also didn’t want to solve the problem by making afternoon cookies verboten forever. So, when I wanted a cookie, I went to random.org and set it to pick a number from 1-3. If it was a 1, I got a cookie, if not, not.
No decision fatigue, no being “bad cop” to myself, and I got to enjoy a thing I wanted intermittently!
I’m running an Ideological Turing Test about religion, and I need some people to try answering the questions. I’ve giving a talk at UPenn this week on how to have better fights about religion, and the audience is going to try to sort out honest/faked Christian and atheist answers and see where both sides have trouble understanding the other.
In April, I’ll share all the entries on my blog, so you can play along at home and see whether you can distinguish the impostors from the true (non-)believers.
I agree it would be good to add a note about push polling, but it’s also good to note that the absence of information is itself a choice! The most spare possible survey is not necessarily the most informative. The question of what is a neutral framing is a tricky one, and a question about the future that deliberate does not draw attention to responsibilities is not necessarily less push-poll-y than one that does.