Marius comments on Verifying Rationality via RationalPoker.com - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Louie 25 March 2011 04:32PM

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Comment author: Louie 25 March 2011 06:05:25PM 6 points [-]

I wish we could do this but playing without real money wouldn't work for improving rationality and I don't think it would even work for testing rationality in a meaningful way.

Also, I think this sets a good precedent. People who will bet on cards are far more likely to bet on their beliefs in general, which is a sign that they actually have beliefs as opposed to just "things they would like to be true". Not taking +EV bets that represent negligible portions of your net-worth is epistemically irrational so it seems like a rationalist community should be encouraging betting when it is done at reasonable stakes as a way to train or test beliefs.

Comment author: Marius 25 March 2011 08:20:22PM 0 points [-]

This is an excellent idea. The ability to create a simple measure (profit/loss) for a complex subject obviously loses something in the process, but makes up for it by allowing reproducible experimentation with a robust and unforgiving metric. If we claim something is valuable, then we should be prepared to find simple metrics capable of measuring it. I think you have done so.