Mark_Eichenlaub comments on Rationality Quotes May 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 May 2012 11:37PM

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Comment author: Mark_Eichenlaub 02 May 2012 05:33:38AM 16 points [-]

If you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right.

Paul Graham “What You’ll Wish You’d Known” http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

Comment author: thomblake 02 May 2012 09:01:08PM 9 points [-]

Reversed stupidity is not intelligence!

Comment author: JGWeissman 02 May 2012 09:13:46PM 24 points [-]
Comment author: Grognor 03 May 2012 01:08:03AM 3 points [-]

Almost the same as the one Eliezer used here

Comment author: thomblake 03 May 2012 03:43:56PM 5 points [-]

The quote in that link makes a good point: If one gives you an excuse to be lazy, then you might be privileging the hypothesis; it could be that it was only raised to the level of attention so that you can avoid work. Thus, the lazy choice really does get a big hit to its prior probability for being lazy.

But it's still false that the other one is probably right. In general, if a human is choosing between two theories, they're both probably insanely wrong. For rationalists, you can charitably drop "insanely" from that description.

Comment author: dlthomas 05 May 2012 05:51:01PM 1 point [-]

Your first paragraph is a good analysis (enough to merit an upvote of the comment as a whole). Your second seems redundant; I don't think anyone would interpret the quoted phrase of non-technical English to mean that you should actually raise your estimate of the theory that doesn't permit laziness relative to other theories not under consideration, and if you have two theories both of which are equally wrong, it doesn't matter much what you do to differentiate them.

Comment author: juped 05 May 2012 03:35:29PM 14 points [-]

Atheism is an excellent excuse for skipping church.

Comment author: dlthomas 05 May 2012 04:03:23PM 1 point [-]

Doesn't always work for me...

Comment author: Xachariah 08 May 2012 11:51:01PM 1 point [-]

And adopting a never ending ideological battle with the majority of your community more than makes up for the effort saved.

If you just wanted to be lazy, there's always agnosticism.

Comment author: Document 09 May 2012 09:43:42PM 5 points [-]

Believing there's no gold under your yard is an excellent excuse for not digging it up.