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wedrifid comments on Living bias, not thinking bias - Less Wrong
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No, I read the grandparent, and I doubt I have such a definition.
Yes, people smoke cigarettes, and let's assume for the sake of argument that it counts as "significantly harmful". Now imagine (hypothetically) that the same mechanism of thought also causes them to pursue lifestyles that grant them an overall 20% increase in healthy lifespan as compared to nonsmokers. In that scenario, the bias that causes smoking cigarettes is not "significantly harmful on average".
Now consider another hypothetical where people smoke cigarettes due to their biases, and other people without those biases have a significantly higher incidence of being run over by buses. Then, the biases that cause smoking cigarettes are not "significantly harmful on average" as compared to the alternative.
I see you assuming exactly what taw claims we're assuming. I don't see you citing any empirical studies showing that it is the case.
I cited the known and well justified behaviour of insurance companies. Compared to that most 'empirical studies' are barely more than slightly larger than average anecdotes.
Yes, I could assume that any obvious failure mode of our biases not serving us well in the present day environment is actually balanced out by some deep underlying benefit of that bias that still applies now and that I haven't thought of yet. But that would be an error somewhere between privileging the hypothesis and outright faith in the anthropomorphised benevolence of our genetic heritage.
Edit: DVNM (Down Vote (of parent as of present time) Not Me!)