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Vaniver comments on Why We Can't Take Expected Value Estimates Literally (Even When They're Unbiased) - Less Wrong

67 Post author: HoldenKarnofsky 18 August 2011 11:34PM

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Comment author: Vaniver 25 August 2011 09:26:09PM 1 point [-]

This isn't heuristic, this is simply the nature of the game.

This looks a lot like a heuristic to me. Is "heuristic" derogative around here?

Imagine Christianity approved of moving piles of sand with tweezers

Why not go with the real-world version? (Especially since it involves ritual destruction of those piles of sand.)

Comment author: gwern 25 August 2011 09:40:11PM 1 point [-]

This looks a lot like a heuristic to me. Is "heuristic" derogative around here?

Yes; heuristics allow errors and are suboptimal in many respects. (That's why they are a 'heuristic' and not 'the optimal algorithm' or 'the right answer' or other such phrases.)

I don't cite the sand mandalas both because they simply didn't come to mind, and they're quite beautiful.

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