simplicio

Karma: 3,301

simplicio 5 Nov 2014 17:54 UTC
3 points
in reply to: jimmy’s comment on: Rationality Quotes November 2014
Source/context?

simplicio 1 Oct 2014 21:31 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
I think Clifford was wrong to say the shipowner was sincere in his belief. In the situation he describes, the belief is insincere—indeed such situations define what I think “insincere belief” ought to mean.

what are you going to do about, basically, stupid people who quite sincerely do not anticipate the consequences of their actions?

Good question. Ought implies can, so in extreme cases I’d consider that to diminish their culpability. For less extreme cases—heh, I had never thought about it before, but I think the “reasonable man” standard is implicitly IQ-normalized. :)

That would be a posterior, not a prior.

Sure.

simplicio 1 Oct 2014 18:55 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014

completely ignoring the actual outcome seems iffy to me

That’s because we live in a world where people’s inner states are not apparent, perhaps not even to themselves. So we revert to (a) what would a reasonable person believe, (b) what actually happened. The latter is unfortunate in that it condemns many who are merely morally unlucky and acquits many who are merely morally lucky, but that’s life. The actual bad outcomes serve as “blameable moments”. What can I say—it’s not great, but better than speculating on other people’s psychological states.

In a world where mental states could be subpoenaed, Clifford would have both a correct and an actionable theory of the ethics of belief; as it is I think it correct but not entirely actionable.

I don’t know what a “genuine extrapolated prior” is.

That which would be arrived at by a reasonable person (not necessarily a Bayesian calculator, but somebody not actually self-deceptive) updating on the same evidence.

A related issue is sincerity; Clifford says the shipowner is sincere in his beliefs, but I tend to think in such cases there is usually a belief/alief mismatch.

I love this passage from Clifford and I can’t believe it wasn’t posted here before. By the way, William James mounted a critique of Clifford’s views in an address you can read here; I encourage you to do so as James presents some cases that are interesting to think about if you (like me) largely agree with Clifford.

simplicio 29 Sep 2014 13:39 UTC
4 points
in reply to: khafra’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
Yay for personal finance, boo for ethics, which is liable to become a mere bully pulpit for teachers’ own views.

simplicio 24 Sep 2014 13:24 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Salemicus’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
Possible that they understood the question, but hearing it in a foreign language meant cognitive strain, which meant they were already working in System 2. That’s my read anyway.

Given to totally fluent second-language speakers, I bet the effect vanishes.

simplicio 18 Sep 2014 13:32 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Azathoth123’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
I don’t really get this. It seems like both types of prediction matter quite a bit.

The only way I can interpret it that makes sense to me is something like:

Thinking really hard about the infinity of things that might happen this week is an unproductive way to generate predictions, because the hypothesis space is too large and you’re just going to excessively privilege some salient hypothesis.

Is he giving advice about making correct predictions given that you just randomly feel like predicting stuff? Or is he giving advice about how to predict things you actually care about?

simplicio 17 Sep 2014 20:50 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
If traditional marriage is a sparrow, then marriage with no-fault divorce is a penguin, and 5 college kids sharing a house is a centipede. Type specimen, non-type specimen, wrong category.

Social expectations are mutable, yes—what of it? Do you think it’s desirable or inevitable that marriage just become a fancy historical legal term for income splitting on one’s tax return? Do you think sharing a house in college is going to be, or ought to be, hallowed and encouraged?

simplicio 17 Sep 2014 19:46 UTC
1 point
in reply to: TeMPOraL’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
This framing is marginally saner, but the weird panicky eschatology of pop-environmentalism is still present. Apparently the author thinks that using up too many resources, or perhaps global warming, currently represent human extinction level threats?

simplicio 17 Sep 2014 19:38 UTC
1 point
in reply to: shminux’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
To my mind, the giving of tax breaks etc. to married folks occurs because (rightly or wrongly) politicians have wanted to encourage marriage.

I agree that in principle there is nothing wrong with 3 single moms or 5 college students forming some sort of domestic partnership contract, but why give them the tax breaks? Do college kids living with each other instead of separately create some sort of social benefit that “we” the people might want to encourage? Why not just treat this like any other contract?

Apart from this, I think the social aspect of marriage is being neglected. Marriage for most people is not primarily about joint tax filing, but rather about publicly making a commitment to each other, and to their community, to follow certain norms in their relationship (e.g., monogamy; the specific norms vary by community). This is necessary because the community “thinks” pair bonding and childrearing are important/sacred/weighty things. In other words, “married” is a sort of honorific.

Needless to say, society does not think 5 college students sharing a house is an important/sacred/weighty thing that needs to be honoured.

This thick layer of social expectations is totally absent for the kind of arm’s-length domestic partnership contract you propose, which makes me wonder why anybody would either want to call it marriage or frame it as being an alternative to marriage.

simplicio 12 Sep 2014 19:56 UTC
2 points
in reply to: shminux’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
Just to clarify, you figure the optimal relationship pattern (in the absence of societal expectations, economic benefits, and I guess childrearing) is serial monogamy? (Maybe the monogamy is assuming too much as well?)

simplicio 12 Sep 2014 18:28 UTC
2 points
in reply to: shminux’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
What if he wanted to make them stay in love?

simplicio 11 Sep 2014 22:46 UTC
2 points
in reply to: DanArmak’s comment on: Calibrating your probability estimates of world events: Russia vs Ukraine, 6 months later.
East Europeans wanted into NATO for protection both from Communism and from Russian domination simpliciter. The latter consideration has not fundamentally changed.

simplicio 10 Sep 2014 20:22 UTC
4 points
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
Bracket neoreaction for the time being. I get that you disagree with HBD positions, but do you literally have trouble comprehending their meaning?

simplicio 27 Feb 2014 14:41 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: Rationality Quotes February 2014
If most people have stolen something (have they?) it seems more likely to be out of carelessness than out of irresistible temptation. If you asked me to go 5 years without stealing anything, no problem. I promise I’ll never try a raisin from the bulk bin, or use vidtomp3, again.

No sex, talking, or spicy food for 5 years? Even if I could form the intention to do that, I’ll fail miserably. It’s not a reasonable thing to expect oneself to do.

simplicio 25 Feb 2014 23:18 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Discredited’s comment on: Rationality Quotes February 2014
Missing context, I think.

simplicio 25 Feb 2014 15:30 UTC
0 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: Rationality Quotes February 2014
It could be, if you subscribe to a weaker version of Kant’s “ought implies can” that says (roughly) “ought implies psychologically feasible”.

The basic thought here is that moral principles are suspect if they are SO difficult to follow that practically everybody is just always drowning in akrasia & hypocrisy. Think of a moral code that forbids talking, sex, and non-bland food for everyone—it’s not physically impossible for humans to follow such a code, so it doesn’t violate Kant’s original dictum, but it’s just not reasonable to expect it to happen in practice.

So I could see an argument that says that asking all humans to be monogamous is like asking them to take a lifelong vow of silence. I don’t buy that argument & I actually think monogamy is important, but the logical structure makes sense to me.

simplicio 21 Feb 2014 19:21 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Rationality Quotes February 2014
Right, but I think the spirit of the Krugman quote is that complication may be unavoidable, but shouldn’t be made into a goal or a badge of honour the way the theorist did. Also that complicatedness is ceteris paribus weak evidence of incorrectness, because of the logic I stated earlier.

simplicio 19 Feb 2014 23:27 UTC
0 points
in reply to: EGarrett’s comment on: Rationality Quotes February 2014
This is basically just a rewarming of Socrates in the Meno, I guess? Only really works for mathematics & like subjects.

simplicio 19 Feb 2014 23:25 UTC
6 points
in reply to: ChrisHallquist’s comment on: Rationality Quotes February 2014
big inferential distances usually --> long chain of reasoning --> at least one step is more likely to be wrong

simplicio 22 Jan 2014 15:24 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Nornagest’s comment on: Rationality Quotes October 2013
In Henry V, Shakespeare has the Duke of Exeter say:

Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,

In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,

That if requiring fail, he will compel;

And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,

Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy

On the poor souls for whom this hungry war

Opens his vasty jaws...

So it seems to have been a fairly common idiom in 17th C English.