“Information always underrepresents reality.”
Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future? (page number not provided by e-reader)
Torello
Karma: 483
“Put simply, the truth about all those good decisions you plan to make sometime in the future, when things are easier, is that you probably won’t make them once that future rolls around and things are tough again.”
Sendhil Mullaainathan and Eldar Shafir, Scarcity, p. 215
Thanks for your reply.
Do you think it would be fair to say that for rare diseases (that are not determined by single loci mutations, like Huntington’s or BRCA, as you described) it’s silly to get a test because a small movement in your risk profile is meaningless in that it wouldn’t impact your treatment or behavior in a meaningful way?
Could you explain what you mean by:
Either way, it is a big chunk of likely mortality
Do you work in a related field? You explained this rather concisely, thanks.
From an article I’m reading:
“For example, the life-time risk for an individual in the United States to develop Crohn’s disease is about 1/1000. How helpful is it for clinicians and patients if that risk shifts to 1⁄500 or 1/2000?”
It may be hard to tell without the context, but they are suggesting that these revised risk assessments would not be useful. My initial thought is: “If having an estimate is helpful, having a more accurate estimate would be better, and there seems to be a big difference between 1⁄500 and 1/1000.
Any thoughts?
Full article: https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/ethicalsocialgenomic/DeflatingTheGenomicBubble.pdf
Interesting post!
Another reason to be charitable: these “poor advocates”, by virtue of being marginalized/unpopular/cranks may have fewer disincentives to say “the emperor has no clothes”, because their standing is already low. Once they put an idea out there, it may gain traction with a greater chunk of the population. Unfortunately, this dynamic leads to “autism is caused by vaccines” movements too.
If you’re interested in the topic I highly recommend this BloggingHeads episode: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/30467 specifically the “emperor has no clothes” and “tokenism” sections (there are links to those segments under the video.
Definitely read The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, or watch him speak about the book (the book is better than the talks).
Basic concepts he shares:
-reduce the number of options (only seriously consider two options for your custom suit, not four)
-”satisfice” which means saying “I don’t need the best, I need something that is good enough.”
-limit the number of decisions where you can change your mind. “I only get one decision where I can reconsider today.”
-make blanket rules that prevent you from having to make decisions “I can never cheat on my partner, so I don’t even need to agonize over every opportunity to cheat that arises.”
Not really what you’re looking for, but I feel obligated:
Move or get a different job. Reduce your commute by 1 or 1.5 hours. This is the best way to increase the productivity of your commute.
I read (can’t remember source) that commuting was the worst part of the people’s day (they were unhappy, or experienced the lowest levels of their self-assess subjective well being).
Having a work ethic might help you accomplish more things than you would without one.
It’s a good reputation boost. “A highly-skilled, hard-working x” might be more flattering than “a highly skilled x.”
Work ethic might be a signal/facet of conscientiousness, a desirable trait in many domains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
Basically what Lumifer said.
Perceiving magic is precisely the same thing as perceiving the limits of your own understanding.
-Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?, (e-reader does not provide page number)
I didn’t read the linked article—it certainly seems to frame the issue as rationalists vs. barbarians, not humanity vs. the environment (and the flaws of humanity), so thanks for pointing that out.
I do think fundamentalists/extremists/terrorists have an asymmetrical advantage in the short term in that it’s always easier to cause damage/disorder than improvement/order. This quote above seems to be a particular example of this phenomenon.
However, I have to agree with Jiro’s comment. Extremists may be able to destroy things and kill people, but I wouldn’t say they’ve been able to conquer anything. To me, “conquer” implies taking control of a country, making its economy work for you, dominating the native population, building a palace, etc. Modern extremists commit suicide and then their mastermind hides silently for a decade until helicopters fly in and soldiers kill him.
“In 1971, John Rawls coined the term “reflective equilibrium” to denote “a state of balance or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular judgments”. In practical terms, reflective equilibrium is about how we identify and resolve logical inconsistencies in our prevailing moral compass. Examples such as the rejection of slavery and of innumerable “isms” (sexism, ageism, etc.) are quite clear: the arguments that worked best were those highlighting the hypocrisy of maintaining acceptance of existing attitudes in the face of already-established contrasting attitudes in matters that were indisputably analogous.”
-Aubrey de Grey, The Overdue Demise Of Monogamy
This passage argues that reasoning does impact ethical behavior. Steven Pinker and Peter Singer make similar arguments, which I find convincing.
What is IRC?
I’ve always considered materialism to be intertwined with rationality.
I see what you mean, but in a military conflict it sees that any gain in power or resources is the result of another group losing power or resources (a zero-sum game). I guess that trade/commerce might be a positive-sum example where competition is still involved but on the whole there is societal benefit.
This seems like an elegant and funny take on Ben Franklin’s wisdom.
Walter Sobchak: “Am I wrong?”
The Dude: “No you’re not wrong.”
Walter Sobchak: “Am I wrong?”
The Dude: “You’re not wrong Walter. You’re just an asshole.”
-The Big Lebowski, Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 1998
Material, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important
Ambrose Bierce, The Enlarged Devil’s Dictionary, Compiled and Edited by Ernest J. Hopkins, p. 194
I find it ironic that you use a military example to illustrate how we can achieve collective action at the civilization level.
Isn’t the fact the Spartans were willing to “come back with their shields—or on it” the epitome of our kind not being able to cooperate?
I always interpreted “our kind” as the whole of humanity, so for me one sub-set of humanity banding together to destroy another subset (or die trying) isn’t a good example of civilization-level cooperation, or the kind of meme that would be useful to spread.
No matter how dissatisfied people are with the results they are getting, they rarely question their way of trying to get results. When what we are doing is not working, we do not try doing something totally different. Instead, we try harder by doing more of what seems self-evidently the right way to proceed.
Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand, p. 186
“While there are problems with what I have proposed, they should be compared to the existing alternatives, not to abstract utopias.”
Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future (page number not provided by e-reader)