MartinB comments on Open Thread: May 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Jack 01 May 2010 05:29AM

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Comment author: MartinB 19 May 2010 09:08:56AM 2 points [-]

I'm not sure how relevant that is, since that's saying something like "learning about biases taught me that we are biased." I don't know if that's very helpful.

It is! I am repeatedly surprised about a) basic level insights that are not wide spread and b) insights that other people consider basic that I do not have c) applications of an idea i understand in an area I did not think of applying it too

To list a few: People are biased => I am biased! Change is possible Understanding is possible I am a brain in a vat. Real life rocks :-)

Even after learning about cached thought, happy death and many others I still managed to fall into the traps of those.

So i consider it helpful to see where someone applies biases.

My political views have updated a lot on a variety of different issues. But I suspect that some of those are due to spending time with people who have those views rather than actually getting relevant evidence.

That statement in itself looks like a warning sign.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 19 May 2010 02:13:51PM 1 point [-]

That statement in itself looks like a warning sign.

Yeah, being aware that there are biases at play doesn't always mean I'm at all sure I'm able to correct for all of them. The problem is made more complicated by the fact that for each of the views in questions, I can point to new information leading to the updates. But I don't know if in general that's the actual cause of the updates.