[link] Bruce Schneier on Cognitive Biases in Risk Analysis

Wed, 04 May 2011 04:37:42 +1000

Submitted by alexflint • 8 votes • 1 comment

A very clear-minded introduction to map-vs-territory ideas in the context of risk analysis. Nothing particularly new here, though the specific examples he gives may be of interest to LW readers.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_schneier.html

1 comment

XFrequentist on [link] Bruce Schneier on Cognitive Biases in Risk Analysis

2011-05-05T04:14:17.216979+10:00

Thanks, interesting!

I've been thinking about writing an article on risk assessment as a worthwhile field of study or source of tools for LWers. The upshot is that it offers a pretty good rationality toolbox and there are lots of jobs, but it's suboptimal in some important ways.

I took a course on health risk assessment and it came pretty close to being Rationality 101 - covered the gamut from probability theory to expected utility to cognitive biases.

ETA: Googling something else returned this, which I hadn't read but is presents an excellent example of the kind of thing I mean by "suboptimal".

[link] Bruce Schneier on Cognitive Biases in Risk Analysis - Less Wrong

[link] Bruce Schneier on Cognitive Biases in Risk Analysis

XFrequentist on [link] Bruce Schneier on Cognitive Biases in Risk Analysis