NihilCredo comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 2 - Less Wrong

13 Post author: dclayh 01 August 2010 10:58PM

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Comment author: NihilCredo 28 August 2010 06:31:09AM 1 point [-]

With a few years of marinating in testosterone ahead he can only get much, much worse.

Fixed for you.

Comment author: wedrifid 28 August 2010 07:07:56AM 1 point [-]

It does seem to happen that way sometimes, doesn't it? But in my observation the only cases where marinating in testosterone makes people worse in the areas of grovelling, supplication, unnecessary apologies and approval seeking are in people who refuse to update based on evidence. We can assume that unlike many nerds Harry is able to make observations from the environment and use them to realise that his strategy doesn't work and go ahead and create a better model of human behaviour and a better strategy.

In guys who are good at instinctive instrumental rationality will tend to be prompted by testosterone to, as they say, 'grow a pair'. Simply because experience tells them that the other options just don't work.