Zed

Karma: 460

Zed 30 Jun 2011 16:35 UTC
25 points
on: I’m becoming intolerant. Help.
Very interesting, because my exposure to LW (and the sequences in particular) had the opposite effect. I’m now better at dealing with others and with dealing with stupidity in general.

My slightly exaggerated thought process used to be: “I’m clearly right about this, so I’ll just repeat and rephrase my arguments until they figure out they’re wrong and I’m right. If they don’t understand it they’re hopeless and I’ll just “flip the bit” on them and move on with my life.”

The problem, of course, is that the strategy is ineffective, and using an ineffective strategy again and again is not rational at all. So I would say the correct strategy is to ask yourself: “Given my understanding of the sequences and of human psychology, what line of argumentation is going to be most effective?”. In this situation you probably want to leave a line of retreat and you probably want to make an effort to close the inferential gap.

If you’re right (in a “facts are on my side” kind of way) you can usually force people to give in but at what cost? Resentment and burned bridges. You might win the battle, but you’ll lose the war.

PS: Insulting your opponent, although an understandable outlet of your frustration, is a form of defecting from the positive-sum game of a civil discussion. I remind myself of this whenever I feel the impulse to insult.

Those who can’t admit they’re wrong

Zed1 Jul 2011 5:09 UTC

14 points

43 comments2 min readLW link

Zed 1 Jul 2011 6:15 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Zetetic’s comment on: Those who can’t admit they’re wrong
Thanks for the TED link.

I had a conventional education (the concept of homeschooling doesn’t exist in my part of Europe) but from middle school up to university you choose who you interact with and I (small-mindedly) chose to only interact with the “smart kids” who liked math and science. Classes were also grouped by personality type and interests so that mathy kids don’t sit in the same math class as the kids who detest math. I don’t think I remember a single occurrence where kids socially punished each other for regular mistakes. For foot-in-mouth moments? Sure. For regular mistakes? Nope. To be fair, maybe I was just oblivious and didn’t pick up on it.

Zed 1 Jul 2011 8:33 UTC
3 points
on: Meta: “Less Wrong” connotations?
I agree with your interpretation of the name LessWrong. Except that I don’t think there’s a subtle secondary message. The straightforward interpretation is probably correct and I don’t think looking for a deeper meaning is going lead to extra insight.

I’m pretty confident that the majority of contributors on LessWrong feel that they’re more logical and more consistent thinkers than their peers and that sense of superiority shows in a multitude of ways. This triggers the defensive “if you’re so smart, why are you wrong about X?” line. Because the name of the site happens to be LessWrong the obvious “pun” is made and the statement takes the form “for a site named LessWrong you sure are wrong about...”. It’s just an attempt to be clever.

You can see the same effect very clearly with movie reviews. They all start or finish with a not-so-clever play on the movie’s title.

Zed 1 Jul 2011 17:19 UTC
1 point
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Those who can’t admit they’re wrong
Interesting idea (although this doesn’t strike me as the kind of post that polarizes). Nothing you wrote came across as manipulative although it can clearly be interpreted that way. The principle of charity is by itself reason enough to give the the “manipulative middle” the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, you announced what you were up to ahead of time so I can’t be certain how I would have reacted if you hadn’t.

I happily admit that I get really annoyed when people maliciously manipulate me. When people manipulate me with good intentions I don’t get upset.

Although I realize that the questions you asked are rhetorical they are also questions I should be happy to answer when taken at face value.

Why not ask them at the point when they’re unhappy? Because at that point they’re going to be least receptive to my arguments. Why not ask them later? It’s the kind of subject that is difficult to bring up without coming across as judgmental/accusatory. Why ask LessWrong? Because my own speculations are unlikely to be good (I shouldn’t assume other people think like me) but personalities fall into rough categories and probably some in the the LessWrong community are familiar with the behavior.

I have to disagree with your conclusion though: why gather evidence from the source? Well, in the best case I end up extrapolating from 3 data points and in the worst case I end up alienating people unnecessarily. I want to gather evidence from the source, but the act clearly has negative expectation! Rationality is not an excuse for self-destructive behavior. So given my options I’d much rather learn from the experience of others.
What links here?
- [deleted]'s comment on New Post version 2 (please read this ONLY if your last name beings with l–z) by lukeprog (28 Jul 2011 16:07 UTC; 0 points)

Zed 1 Jul 2011 17:23 UTC
4 points
in reply to: MixedNuts’s comment on: Those who can’t admit they’re wrong

That’s annoying.

I think so too. But if I were to treat others the way I wish to be treated I wouldn’t be able to function in society. I’d drive everybody crazy.

Zed 1 Jul 2011 17:34 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: Benquo’s comment on: Those who can’t admit they’re wrong
1a. Do you also get offended when a book/wikipedia tells you you’re wrong?

1b. Would you get offended when a book chapter has a sidebar: “Some ignorant people believe X, which is in contradiction with chapter 1” when you, of course, happen to believe X?

2: Does your pride get offended when you’re talking in a group and a person standing next to you is corrected for a belief you hold as well?

3a. You google a question and come across a Quora question that exactly explains your position the way you would have written it. The position is then exposed as idiotic by other Quora members. Pride offended?

3b. The same as 3, but it turns out you were the one who asked the question a year ago and you completely forgot about it. Assuming your pride got offended the first time, does your pride get offended the second time?

If you’re offended, for whichever reason, and you then realize it doesn’t make sense for you to be offended. Do you automatically stop being offended/upset?

Zed 4 Jul 2011 10:45 UTC
6 points
on: What are LessWrong’s thoughts on Venkatesh Rao, Gregory Rader, and Daniel Lemire?
I don’t think we should criticize[1] people on a public forum, on the internet where nothing ever gets deleted. For one, this is just not the kind of thread that is going to produce insightful ideas or a healthy discussion.

Second, it’s just too delicate a subject matter. I have my thoughts on the authors you list, but I keep deleting whatever I write. I just can’t find a way to discuss it in good taste. And really, how can I possibly give my critique on Venkat who came up with the brilliant “I was expecting an inquisition by a panel of Spocks” to refer to the judging nature of the LW populace!

[1] To judge; not necessarily to find fault.

Zed 5 Jul 2011 11:13 UTC
4 points
in reply to: satt’s comment on: What are LessWrong’s thoughts on Venkatesh Rao, Gregory Rader, and Daniel Lemire?
I think there’s a big difference between discussing a specific idea and discussing the person and everything he writes from Quora posts to the blog, the mailing list and the book. I’d happily voice my opinion about Tempo, or about Slightly Evil, the Gervais Principle or any of his other ideas. They’re different works though and they don’t deserve to be clumped together in one “what do I think about Rao” kind of post. When somebody is as prolific as Venkat inevitably some of the stuff is going to be good and some of the stuff is going to be not so good.

Maybe you can give a nuanced opinion about a person and his work in a couple of paragraphs. I sure can’t. It’s just incredibly difficult to do a person’s accomplishments justice with some kind of quick summary. If I don’t think I can stand behind what I write a couple of years down the road I shouldn’t write it in the first place.

Also, this is not self-censorship. We all have (controversial) opinions about a variety of topics and when we voice those opinions we send a signal. Some of these signals we don’t wish to send and consequently, on some matters we choose not to voice our opinion. It’s just a mundane cost-benefit analysis; nothing more.

Zed 8 Jul 2011 7:27 UTC
11 points
in reply to: lsparrish’s comment on: Distracting wolves and real estate agents
Technically, when you avoid being ranked you don’t avoid being ranked entirely. See Marx’s Laws Of Status Illegibility

It’s intuitively sensible because even if you’re unranked you know you’re not the Alpha, therefore you have some sort of rank. You’ll probably still have to play some status games.
What links here?
- JenniferRM's comment on What are LessWrong’s thoughts on Venkatesh Rao, Gregory Rader, and Daniel Lemire? by InquilineKea (11 Jul 2011 4:44 UTC; 6 points)

Zed 8 Jul 2011 8:48 UTC
7 points
in reply to: nazgulnarsil’s comment on: Distracting wolves and real estate agents
This may be stating the obvious, but the context often IS the informational content. Small talk especially has no surface level informational content so the goal of small talk isn’t, obviously, to exchange surface level information.

This is another one of those situations where it’s tempting (but wrong) to reason “Regular people like small talk. Small talk doesn’t convey any information. Therefore small talk is pointless. Conclusion: regular people are insane and like to waste their time with pointless stuff”. Funnily enough, when we try to figure out the behavior of other mammals we would never be so quick jump to the conclusion that they are idiots.

Zed 8 Jul 2011 11:56 UTC
15 points
on: Draft of a Suggested Reading Order for Less Wrong
You list a number of great posts but the trouble with the sequences and most of LW is Death By Dependency. Nothing makes sense until everything else makes sense after which everything makes sense.

For that reason alone I think every post that links to related material every second sentence should be disqualified from the suggested reading list. People who tend to read in a depth-first manner (I think most people do?) will open the #1 post “What do we mean with Rationality” only to immediately start reading about “Your map and the territory” and will keep circling until they’ve read over 2 million words.

The core of the problem is that every post is entangled with every other post and this cannot be solved by creating a new post that itself refers to a 100 other posts. You cannot first explain that Curiosity is a virtue to people who are already curious by nature and then casually link to Newcombike problems (as is the case in reading list post #1) and not expect them to get stuck on Newcomb’s problem and TDT for the next week of their life.

Wikipedia has pages in English and pages in Simple English. Example: average and average simple. I think this is the approach we need to take. A separate Introduction to LessWrong sequence that can be read linearly and covers the subjects in a direct and accessible manner.

Feedback on the reading list itself:

“Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence” is probably one of the strongest posts in the MATMQ sequence and I think it should replace or at least precede Conservation of Expected Evidence (that post simply doesn’t make sense even to people who are familiar with basic statistics).

A link to Luke’s Reading Yudkowsky series would probably also be a good addition.

Edit: I do think the list as it is now is tremendously valuable because it’s very easy to miss a few of the great posts even if you think you’ve read about everything.

Zed 10 Jul 2011 16:35 UTC
2 points
on: Why don’t automobiles decelerate faster when necessary?
My intuition is that car drivers don’t care about car safety. Sure, when considering the purchase an automobile the buyer may eliminate those models that have a 1 out of 5 safety rating and pay extra attention to the models that are considered high safety but that’s just because you purchase fuzzies that way. You don’t want to signal that you don’t care about safety and buying a safe car feels like the responsible and adult thing to do.

The same people who buy “safe” cars drive when tired and take insufficient breaks, even though study after study shows this can be as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. And they’ll happily play with their iPod or make distracting phone calls even though this too is known to be dangerous.

Studies show that after the introduction of the seat belt people started driving more aggressively and kept less distance. If I recall correctly the discovered trend was that when people feel more safe they drive more aggressively to compensate. Likewise, if the car feels unsafe or unstable people anticipate better and drive more attentively. My own experience backs this up insofar my driving style changes the moment I switch to winter tires (it shouldn’t change; I should just be happy my car is now safer). Given that driving is one of the most dangerous activities in life we should be extremely cautious, yet we aren’t.

We care only about relative car safety. You don’t want to drive in a car that’s much less safe than the average car on the road, even though driving risk should be compared to other risks in your daily life and not to the driving risks other people take.

Edit:

I shouldn’t have said that people don’t care about car safety. People do care (because if you ask them that’s what they’d answer) but their actions are inconsistent with that belief. So it’s a form of status quo bias. The current situation is seen as perfectly acceptable and slightly safer cars are seen as slightly better and slightly less safe cars are seen as slightly worse.

In the automobile market where only relative safety matters there is no need to make wild innovations. Marginal changes in the look and feel of a car are much more practical (and profitable).

Note: I didn’t look for sources. Claims about results from studies are from memory.

Zed 10 Jul 2011 16:59 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Will_Newsome’s comment on: Why don’t automobiles decelerate faster when necessary?
I would conclude instead that the seemingly low-hanging fruit is not low-hanging.

Every time you make something that is perceived as a wild innovation you’re betting the entire brand of your company on that innovation. The public is completely unforgiving when car manufacturers mess up and the industry compensates accordingly.

Government could enforce it, but which elected official is going to put his weight behind it? There’s nothing to be gained and everything to be lost.

Zed 10 Jul 2011 22:46 UTC
6 points
on: too much consistency considered harmful
Disagree. There is no contradiction.

Why am I going swimming? To socialize and for health benefits.

Why do I want to jump into the cold water? Because (a) I’ve precommited to do so (b) I want to build the habit and (c) it’s not worth the opportunity cost of any further analysis.

Is this the time or place for any further analysis? No. I’m in swimming mode not in hobby-rationality mode.

Our rationality hobby is about meta-thinking. Learning how to think better and about how to reason better. When you’re standing in front of a pool or when going through life in general you have to to make ordinary 5-second decisions. Our rationality, ideally, helps us make better decisions in that time span because we notice when we’re confused, we are aware of what our preferences are and so on. Or we may conclude it’s an important decision that demands more time for further analysis. Either way we still have to make regular decisions within a few seconds like everybody else! Five seconds to either go home to your thinking-chair or to jump into the pool and go swimming.

And why are we even thinking about this problem in the first place? It’s an absolute no-brainer. There is nothing to be gained by analyzing this.

Of all the philosophical problems you could be thinking about, of all the rationality problems you could be working on, is this the one you should spend your time on? No. Slap a question mark on it and mark it “for further analysis” if you have to, but otherwise it’s just a humongous waste of time.

(One trick though for fooling yourself that works consistently for me is asking myself “Would James Bond do this?”. Would he stand at the edge of the pool questioning himself? No. Would he walk down the street while looking at his feet? No. Would he avert his gaze or mumble incoherently? No. The question fits easily within the 5 second window and as a bonus: it’s fun to visualize Mr Bond standing at the edge of a pool awkwardly rubbing the back of his head as he deliberates whether to jump or not to jump.)

Zed 11 Jul 2011 12:10 UTC
2 points
in reply to: knb’s comment on: Why don’t automobiles decelerate faster when necessary?

They definitely do care about safety. Manufacturers keep introducing advanced safety features, and automobile safety is increasing quite rapidly.

Cars are getting safer but that doesn’t mean much. When I say “Care about safety” I mean that when given the choice between a car that has +10 safety and a car that has +10 pretty people would pick the car that’s safer. People don’t. People pick cars based on looks first, and other attributes such as power, torque, features and safety as secondary concerns. People are embarrassed to drive in an ugly car but are not embarrassed to drive their friends in a pretty but unsafe car.

In addition, brands like Volvo are focused almost entirely on safety

This too is evidence for safety as a secondary priority! If every manufacturer already had safety as their #1 priority you wouldn’t be able to advertise with “We care about safety!”. You pick a marketing strategy to get that segment of the population that cares specifically about the marketing message you send. Some car manufacturers try to get those people who care specifically about safety, some try to get those people who care about the environment, some try to get those people who care about fuel efficiency. The market is segmented based on second order preferences. Not on the thing people care about most.

This is wrong for a couple reasons

I didn’t mean to imply that people who buy safe cars take fewer breaks or drive when tired more compared to people who drive regular cars. I meant it quite literally that even though they buy a safe car they still take risks that are—compared to other risk they take on a daily basis—way out of proportion.

And if Volvo drivers indeed drive much safer than other people do this too is evidence for the general disregard for safety by the rest of the population! So again, safety as a secondary concern in practice. Right up there with fuel efficiency, engine noise and the number of cup holders.

Zed 11 Jul 2011 23:49 UTC
14 points
on: Follow-up on ESP study: “We don’t publish replications”
Academics know, or at least ought to know, that most new publications are either wrong or completely uninteresting. This is the logical side-effect from the publish-or-perish policy in academia and the increase of PhD students worldwide. Estimated 1.346 million papers per year are published in journals alone[1]. If humanity produced interesting papers at that rate scientific progress would go a lot quicker!

So if it’s true that most publications are uninteresting and if it’s true that most academics have to publish at a high rate in order to protect their career and send the right signals we don’t want to punish and humiliate academics for publishing stupid ideas or badly executed experiments. And when you publish a paper that demonstrates the other party did a terrible job it does exactly that. The signal to noise ratio in academic journals wouldn’t increase by much but suddenly academics can simply reach their paper quota by picking the ideas of other academics apart. You’d get an even more poisonous environment as a result!

In our current academic environment (or at least my part of it) most papers without a large number of citations are ignored. A paper without any citations is generally considered such a bad source that it’s only one step up from wikipedia. You can cite it, if you must, but you better not base your research on it. So in practice I don’t think it’s a big deal that mistakes aren’t corrected and that academics typically aren’t expected to publicly admit that they were wrong. It’s just not necessary.

Zed 13 Jul 2011 10:52 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Bongo’s comment on: Follow-up on ESP study: “We don’t publish replications”
Not necessarily. Ignoring crap may be a better strategy than picking it apart.

Cooperation is also easier when different groups in the same research area don’t try too hard to invalidate each other’s claims. If the problem in question is interesting you’re much better off writing your own paper on it with your own claims and results. You can dismiss the other paper with a single paragraph: “Contrary to the findings of I.C. Wiener in [2] we observe that...” and leave it at that.

The system is entirely broken but I don’t see an easy way to make it better.

Zed 13 Jul 2011 11:30 UTC
19 points
on: Do not ask what rationalists should do
I don’t think this kind of nitpicking between the different definitions of rational is very productive. Yes, rationality is the art of making the best decisions and yes that means rational people should be “winning”.

Unfortunately, I don’t get the impression people who identify with LessWrong or with Bayesian reasoning are all that successful in life. I don’t get the impression that when people are exposed to LessWrong that their life improves significantly.

It takes at least a 1000 hours to learn the Art of Rationality (probably much more) and if after all that effort people are not noticeably more successful how can we possibly call rationality winning? The opportunity cost of studying rationality is immense so we should get a large return on that investment!

From my point of view it looks like the rational choice is not to study rationality. Instead learn to play the guitar, or take cooking classes, or do any other activity that makes you a more well rounded human being. People often attribute increases in happiness and life satisfaction to that sort of activities.

Alternatively, just look at the people who live the kind of life you want to live and see how they got there and follow their path. This isn’t Bayesian reasoning with a prior based on aggregated life experience of your heroes (although technically it is), this is just common sense. This is the same conclusion you’d reach without studying rationality in depth.

It’s fun to refer to rationality as the art of winning, but let’s not forget that we say this with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

PS: if making a decision is difficult because you have trouble quantifying information then this is probably the solution.

Zed 14 Jul 2011 6:50 UTC
1 point
in reply to: JenniferRM’s comment on: What are LessWrong’s thoughts on Venkatesh Rao, Gregory Rader, and Daniel Lemire?
His book took me by surprise. I expected it to have the same style and sort of content as his blog (like every other blogger who writes a book) but it was completely different. It consists of half a dozen (unrelated) chapters that end with an exercise. I’m not sure if Tempo is any good (I suspect his solutions overfit the data) but it’s short (130 pages or so) so there’s no reason not to pick it up if you like the way Venkat thinks.

I’m taking the liberty of adjusting your estimate of wanting to buy the book upwards to 30%.

Zed

Those who can’t ad­mit they’re wrong

Those who can’t admit they’re wrong