TheOtherDave comments on Examine your assumptions - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Douglas_Reay 30 March 2012 11:28AM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 30 March 2012 08:09:24PM 3 points [-]

This is kind of brilliant.

Comment author: khafra 02 April 2012 05:53:28PM 1 point [-]

Seems (at least in retrospect) that its obviousness would be proportional to the percentage of bombers that didn't make it back at all.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 02 April 2012 06:08:09PM 3 points [-]

In retrospect, sure. But regardless of how many bombers get shot down, it takes a certain clarity of mind to look at the survivors and realize that the damage they've received isn't necessarily representative of the damage the non-survivors received.

On consideration, I suspect the inverse error gets made quite a lot when analyzing failure modes in situations where failure renders an instance unavailable for further analysis.

Comment author: khafra 02 April 2012 07:14:47PM 0 points [-]

You're right, of course: I'd heard the story without working out the solution myself, and my mind leapt to the "obvious" solution.

I suspect the inverse error gets made quite a lot when analyzing failure modes in situations where failure renders an instance unavailable for further analysis.

s/inverse error/identical error? I'm having trouble imagining the inverse error, unless it's leaning too hard on boolean, non-probabilistic anthropic reasoning and ignoring real damage distributions.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 02 April 2012 07:20:55PM 0 points [-]

I meant the error that was (sloppily phrased) the inverse of "look at the survivors and realize that the damage they've received isn't necessarily representative of the damage the non-survivors received". So, yes, the identical error to the one we've been discussing all along.