Will_Newsome comments on How to avoid dying in a car crash - Less Wrong

75 Post author: michaelcurzi 17 March 2012 07:44PM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome comment score below threshold [+] (30 children)

Comment author: [deleted] 18 March 2012 07:51:39AM 3 points [-]

the decision theoretic generalization of anthropic selection will still save you.

Meaning "if I hadn't survived I wouldn't be here telling this to you, so everyone you hear anything from has survived all accidents they've ever been involved in"? True, but how would that save me?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 March 2012 08:14:29AM 2 points [-]

Basically. The anthropic selection effect is, "you'll never find yourself in a world where you're dead". The generalized pseudo-anthropic selection effect is, "you'll never find yourself in a world where you're relatively unable to influence significant decisions". 'Course, this is only subjectively true, so it applies to me and not you. But if I were you, it'd apply to you too. But I'm not you, so I can't honestly endorse this as a norm, because counterfactuals screw with folks' heads, and people confuse prescriptions and descriptions too easily.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 March 2012 08:19:39AM * 7 points [-]

Oh yeah, quantum suicide. The problem is that with sufficiently bad car accidents, the worlds where I survive with, say, a full-body paralysis or something vastly outnumber those where I survive in a reasonably intact body.

ETA: Wait, that's the "plain" anthropic selection effect. I don't get how your generalized pseudo-anthropic selection effect is supposed to work.

Comment author: MartinB 18 March 2012 08:08:20AM 2 points [-]

There are other branches in the multiverse were do does not get to tell this story. No one notices. I think the term is surviver bias.

Comment author: katydee 18 March 2012 04:04:07AM * 6 points [-]

I would understand what you mean, but people unfamiliar with you won't.

It overall seems rather silly to expect that references to the old gods will be understood in the first place, much less understood as actually referring to advanced decision theory rather than simple woo.

Unfortunately, tailoring one's communication to the audience's knowledge of the speaker is rather high-effort in most cases, but if you're interested in being understood rather than in signaling how advanced and contrarian your ideas are, it may be worthwhile.

Comment author: Will_Newsome comment score below threshold [+] (1 child)

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 March 2012 04:36:02AM -1 points [-]

(By the way, for anyone who cares, I recommend you don't spend much time picking up skeptic lingo; they have uniquely bad epistemology. Like, even worse than their sworn enemies the homeopaths and astrologers, and that's saying something.)

Comment author: wedrifid 18 March 2012 06:06:29AM * 2 points [-]

By the way, for anyone who cares, I recommend you don't spend much time picking up skeptic lingo; they have uniquely bad epistemology. Like, even worse than their sworn enemies the homeopaths and astrologers, and that's saying something.

What are some examples of particularly bad lingo and epistemology that skeptics use that you suggest we should avoid? This isn't rhetorical - I don't consider myself a skeptic. I'm curious and I imagine there could be a subset of those things that you think are epistemic bullshit that overlaps which I similarly could hold in contempt.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 March 2012 06:48:11AM 0 points [-]

I replied to the comment you deleted here. Sorry for the mix-up, I didn't realize you'd deleted it until after I replied.

Comment deleted 18 March 2012 05:49:14AM * [-]

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 March 2012 06:18:08AM * 17 points [-]

Mostly various fake explanations and ways of avoiding noticing confusion, e.g. catch-all "explanations" like "mass hallucination", "abnormal weather phenomena", "coincidence", &c. Also bad are vague categories like "pseudoscience" which are almost entirely about status.

I first came into contact with the skeptic community while looking at some of the more intelligent papers in the ufology literature. You'd get people, e.g. intelligent physicists, who were obviously just trying to make sense of the situation as best they could, getting a lot of eye-witness testimony, thinking of plausible mechanisms, &c., and then the skeptics would reply with papers along the lines of "how dare you even look at something so contemptible, let alone take it seriously, the explanation is obviously mass hallucination or weird weather phenomena or something, I'm going to ignore everything you said and instead spend many paragraphs talking about how stupid ufology is because ufology is so stupid, why are you being so stupid".

The anti-parapsychology papers weren't as bad but they were still pretty bad; I noticed that skeptics have this nasty habit of manipulating statistics to make a point, even moreso than the parapsychologists. (Which I think caused me to update too much towards thinking the parapsychology literature is actually worthwhile; you know, "if the skeptics have to manipulate the statistics so much to prove their point, then maybe the parapsychologists really are on to something".) A fair amount of the manipulation on both sides involves patently bogus claims about file drawer effects.

I also think the new atheists are pretty bad, but I think my audience would demand more justification for that claim than I'm prepared to give.

(ETA: To some extent I'd be willing to forgive skeptics if they applied their skepticism evenly; then they'd be more like skeptics in the Greek sense, which is justifiable even if not pragmatic. But as is they mostly accept whatever popular science and liberaltarian ideology tells them to accept, and in general it's almost entirely about promoting or denouncing things according to un-reflected-upon Enlightenment ideology.)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 March 2012 01:33:04PM 1 point [-]

An even handed discussion of the kind of evidence frequently offered by those who believe believe in anomalies and those who don't, and what sort of evidence and argument should be offered.

How I found it: long ago, I read a magazine called the Zetetic [something] in Robert Anton Wilson. Unlike believer publications and skeptic publications, it was an effort to really look at the details of arguments. Unlike believer publications (which are numerous) and skeptic publications (of which I know only one), it never found much of an audience, and didn't last.

However, googling turned up Mario Truzzi, who wanted there to be a zetetic influence at the Skeptical Inquirer, and that led me to the link I referenced.

A careful skeptical investigation of a UFO claim. I'm citing it because it's much better than just saying "hallucination".

Comment author: [deleted] 18 March 2012 06:24:51AM 1 point [-]

Now that's really curious. I wonder why wedrifid deleted the original.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 March 2012 06:27:07AM 1 point [-]

I am also confused. He was downvoted pretty quickly, perhaps because he was encouraging my skeptic-slandering or encouraging off-topic discussion?

Comment author: [deleted] 18 March 2012 06:28:28AM 3 points [-]

Yeah, but your response was (forgive me for saying uncharacteristically) coherent and reasonable.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 March 2012 06:42:47AM 4 points [-]

(Needless self-disclosing side comment:) I'm probably more coherent & reasonable because I'm buzzed & caffeinated and am commenting with the aim of conversing with people rather than the aim of avoiding culpability for not even having tried to warn people that they are making predictably-retrospectively-stupid mistakes. I don't normally have enough motivational resources to actually try to talk to people, alas.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 March 2012 01:35:03PM 1 point [-]

When you were a kid, what sort of communication environment were you living in?

continue this thread »

Comment author: Will_Newsome 19 March 2012 05:18:20PM 0 points [-]

In aqua veritas, in vino sanitas.

Comment author: wedrifid 18 March 2012 06:59:04AM * 0 points [-]

He was downvoted pretty quickly, perhaps because he was encouraging my skeptic-slandering or encouraging off-topic discussion?

Downvoted to -1 then back up at 0 when I edited/deleted/recommented. I attributed the early vote to just something personal against either one of us. We both get those from time to time but they tend to be averaged out given time - at least my ones do. Yours have a bit more weight behind them.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 March 2012 08:28:17AM 4 points [-]

I've noticed such user-specific downvotes tend to be a lot more common lately, not just for old folk like us but new folk too. E.g. User:ABrooks made a post about FAI that didn't fit in with local ideas, and consequently almost all of his comments were immediately downvoted. Only -1, but that's enough to significantly bias folks' intuitions about how charitable they should be when reading a comment. Various people have noticed weird voting patterns recently, normally in the form of heavy downvoting of seemingly relatively innocuous comments. I've also noticed that "yay our side, boo their side" comments tend to be very highly upvoted, moreso than a year or two ago. Nothing to do about it, but it might be worth a discussion posts along the lines of "LessWrong has become somewhat more stupid lately, don't take the downvotes too personally". But probably not. (It's not like LessWrong was ever that elite anyway; too much evaporative cooling which resulted in a lot of people who strongly agree with Eliezer even when he's wrong and even when they don't know why he's right. (I used to lean in that direction.) But it's still kinda sad; there aren't any publicly open alternatives.)

Comment author: wedrifid 18 March 2012 08:55:46AM * 2 points [-]

. User:ABrooks made a post about FAI that didn't fit in with local ideas, and consequently almost all of his comments were immediately downvoted.

Link? I don't see a post by him.

Edit: Found it. It's one I downvoted but without it having enough impact on me to even remember that ABrooks is a user. I believe I stopped reading after the first couple of paragraphs after it introduce a premise that seemed fundamentally absurd. Something to do with it being not being theoretically possible to create an AI without teaching it to think through interaction. (I mean... what? Identify the thing that is an AI after it has been taught to think then combine bits of matter in such a way that you have that AI. Basic physical reductionism!)

I'm a little surprised that he got mass downvoted (ie. of other comments, not that particular post). For that matter I'm a little surprised that the specific post got significantly downvoted. Usually things far more stupid than that stay positive*. Did he get into personal bickering with a specific individual at all? That's what I usually associate with mass downvotes.

* "Usually things far more stupid than that stay positive" of course really means "of posts that are far more stupid than that immediately spring to my mind most are those that are not downvoted."

continue this thread »

Comment author: wedrifid 18 March 2012 08:49:33AM * 0 points [-]

Nothing to do about it, but it might be worth a discussion posts along the lines of "LessWrong has become somewhat more stupid lately, don't take the downvotes too personally".

I have the reverse message. I say be willing just take them personally when appropriate. I don't really mind people having a personal problem with me but if people sincerely negatively evaluate comments that I consider high quality then that distresses me. After all if I hear "Fuck you! You're a dick." then the subject matter is subjective and they may have a point. If I hear "You're wrong!" then I may, after double checking, actually have to evaluate the accuser as being poor at thinking. Too much of that just leads to contempt and bitterness.

It's not like LessWrong was ever that elite anyway; too much evaporative cooling which resulted in a lot of people who strongly agree with Eliezer even when he's wrong and even when they don't know why he's right.

(Old-Timer Topper:) That's nutthin! Do you actually think kids these days have read enough rationality literature - from Eliezer or otherwise - for them to be able to even know which beliefs to take on faith without knowing why? I don't see much in the way of (correct) application of rationality principles for me to be declaring as done without basis.

Comment author: wedrifid 18 March 2012 06:58:31AM * 0 points [-]

Now that's really curious. I wonder why wedrifid deleted the original.

The original didn't give Will the explanation. I deleted and recommented instead of editing because I thought Will may miss the explicit-non rhetorical part since he would not be notified. Then there was just a race condition.

I wanted to be clear that I was communicating in good faith because I am epidemically opposed to Will on some issues and if my comment was evaluated as part of the reference class "typical human use of language" the meaning of my phrasing would not be one of sincere inquiry.

Comment author: MartinB 18 March 2012 07:36:54AM 0 points [-]

Amateur scientistic groupies The tendency to react with one comment statements is both understandable - if an issue is sufficiently explored, yet new people come with the same stupid idea again and again and again. And it is also rather annoying. Look up the meme video on "Shit skeptics say".

I used to do it, working against it now.

Will_Newsome comments on How to avoid dying in a car crash - Less Wrong

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