JulianMorrison comments on Incremental Progress and the Valley - Less Wrong
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An incremental step can be a loss where you have two errors reversing each other. You have error A that causes suffering a and error B that causes anti-a. You cure B, and suddenly you experience a. The anti-rationalist says "quick, reinstate B". I say "no, work back from a to A and cure A".
Example: pessimists make better calibrated estimates but are worse off for happiness and health. IMO the pessimists are probably not accepting the reality they predict, they are railing against it, which is a variety of magical thinking.
Another example: getting rid of risk aversion without getting rid of overconfidence bias, or vice versa.