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gwern comments on 11 core rationalist skills - Less Wrong
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Comments (33)
The thing is, if you actually make a written down prediction, you're more likely to alter your actions purely for the sake of making it come true.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
It is a bad thing, if you predict that something bad will happen.
If you don't foresee/predict bad things happening, then you can't do anything to prevent them. UnFriendly AI anyone?
This reminds me of an architectural designer I used to work for, when we were laying out what needed to be done I would try to foresee what could go wrong, so I could head it off. I finally quit trying to do that with him because he kept accusing me of "negativity" as though thinking about bad things make them happen. (Since I was the one actually doing most of the work I still tried to predict what could go wrong, and head it off, I just quit talking to him about it.)
I can imagine someone predicting something bad happening, seeing that it probably won't happen, and causing it to happen in order to prove they were right.
It's probably best to do this with things that we have almost no control over.
Quite right.
It's the poor craftsman who blames his tools!
(Or as Gibbon says, 'The wind and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.')