shokwave comments on The Fallacy of Dressing Like a Winner - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (21)
This is a sign that you may be beating up a straw man (which is fun to write, but not as much fun to read). If your big insight doesn't cash out in direct practical advice or illumination of previously confusing phenomena, be very suspicious.
Furthermore, I think you've chosen poor examples in the "perfect Bayesians do X" category. The reference to Aumann's Agreement Theorem in the Bayesian Judo post was a joke, and the example from the comment wasn't suggesting you naively implement it in real life.
Finally, you should be aware of the prior discussion here on this topic.
These bugs aren't fatal, but they're good examples of why one's first post ought to be published in the Discussion section rather than the top level (and promoted later, if everything checks out).
One of the examples I brought up in the depublished post was of motivation. That is, people investigate motivated people - and they can't find any motivated people who don't have methods. So, naturally, they go out to the (book)store and purchase some methods, expecting that wearing and using these methods will make them a motivated person. This seems like a case of the dressing like a winner fallacy that isn't really a strawman, and does clear up some confusion regarding akrasia and the like.
(I did also recommend removing the mathematically rational section; I had concerns that it didn't fit as well as the other two.)