Stuart_Armstrong comments on Fight Biases, or Route Around Them? - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Yvain 25 March 2009 10:23PM

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Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 26 March 2009 12:35:28PM 5 points [-]

Anchoring may still be a problem here. Your Isaac may decide to try and debiase himself through the methods you suggest, but when will he stop these efforts? When he's reached a point where he feels reasonably debiased - which will be an improvement, but still on the Israeli side of 'reasonable'.

If Sayed Muhammed had done the same thing from the opposite side, he would have ended up on the Palestianian side of 'reasonable'. And the span of reasonable may be quite large.

Actual debiasing will require efforts "beyond the call of duty", to avoid the anchoring effect. Another approach, if both Issac and Sayed Muhammed are honest in their quest, is to lock them together in a room and only let them out when they agree (not when they "have negotiated a reasonable compromise", but actually agree on the issues).