h-H comments on How can we get more and better LW contrarians? - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Wei_Dai 18 April 2012 10:01PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (328)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 24 June 2012 10:22:04PM 0 points [-]

It seems to follow from this model that if we measure the tendency towards procrastination in two groups, one of which is selected for their demonstrable capability for math, or more generally for deep, insightful thought, and the other of which is not, we should find that the former group procrastinates more than the latter group.

Yes?

Comment author: h-H 24 June 2012 10:35:37PM *  1 point [-]

Yes & I'd modify that slightly to "the former group needs to more actively combat procrastination".

Comment author: TheOtherDave 24 June 2012 10:40:59PM 0 points [-]

Upvoted for not backing away from a concrete prediction.
I would be very surprised by that result.

Comment author: h-H 24 June 2012 10:50:02PM *  0 points [-]

Upvoted for good reasons for upvoting :)

For data, we could run a LW poll as a start and see. And out of curiosity, why would you be surprised?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 24 June 2012 11:50:39PM 0 points [-]

Hm. You seem to have edited the comment after I responded to it, in such a way that makes me want to take back my response. How would we tell whether the former group needs to more actively combat procrastination?

I would be surprised because it's significantly at odds with my experience of the relationship between procrastination and insight.

Comment author: h-H 25 June 2012 03:14:32PM 0 points [-]

I have a habit of editing a comment for a bit after replying, actually I didn't see your response until after editing, I don't see how this changes your response in this instance though?

I added that caveat since the former group might have members who originally suffered more from procrastination as per the model, but eventually learned to deal with it, this might skew results if not taken into account.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 25 June 2012 03:27:54PM 0 points [-]

It changes my response because while I kind of understand how to operationalize "group A procrastinates more than group B" I don't quite understand how to operationalize "group A needs to more actively combat procrastination than group B." Since what i was approving of was precisely the concreteness of the prediction, swapping it out for something I understand less concretely left me less approving.