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Sniffnoy comments on Procedural Knowledge Gaps - Less Wrong
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But there are still only two ways to connect the four clamps, since cable color doesn't matter when they're acting purely as cables.
Right, that's true if you're connecting them randomly -- you have a 50% probability of getting it right either way.
But if your intent is to connect red to positive, and black to negative, and you do that fairly reliably but with some chance of a mistake, then there are twice as many chances to make an error, and your chance of getting it wrong by making an odd number of errors is higher (although not exactly twice as high, which I incorrectly implied).
On the other hand more science knowledge is required to be sure of which way they go. "Does '+' go with the other '+'? Wait, no. It's like magnets, the plus goes with the minus... Oh damn. Why is it doing that?" People are less likely to be in doubt when they have a box with wires saying "attach to positive", "attach to negative".
Ah, a good point.