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Perplexed comments on How not to move the goalposts - Less Wrong
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The problem seems even worse than that. Suppose I can somehow magically determine the actual C++ ability of any weasel, and hire the first ten I come across that is above some threshold, then someone who doesn't have my magical ability would still (rationally) expect that the average skill among red weasels that I hire is lower than the average skill among blue weasels that I hire. (And I would expect this myself before I started the hiring process.) Similarly if decide to gather some fixed number of candidates and hire the top 10%.
One way Perplexed could be right is if I have the magical ability (or a near perfect test), and I decide to hire only weasels whose C++ ability is exactly X (no higher and no lower), but that seems rather unrealistic. What other situations could produce the result that Perplexed claimed?
Ouch. I wish I had read this before dismissing cousin_it's citation of Robin's point.
Ok, my nothing was unjustified. Though I will point out that if I hire for a second-tier engineering organization which pays no higher than it has too, then the blue weasels that I hire will probably not be much better than the red weasels. All the blue super-weasels will get jobs elsewhere. In fact, it will be found that they are not weasels at all, but rather martins or minks.