David_J_Balan comments on Joint Distributions and the Slow Spread of Good Ideas - Less Wrong

13 Post author: David_J_Balan 20 July 2009 11:31PM

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Comment author: David_J_Balan 21 July 2009 04:45:20PM 2 points [-]

I think that's right. More broadly, the "unfavorable joint distribution of attributes retards adoption of good ideas" phenomenon doesn't apply when the limitations imposed by the joint distribution can be easily gotten around one way or the other. That's why I suspect it is most at play when one of the scarce attributes is actually the willingness to entertain doing the things that would be necessary to escape the constraints imposed by the other scarce attributes.