nyan_sandwich comments on List of underrated risks? - Less Wrong

12 Post author: yttrium 30 May 2012 08:59PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 30 May 2012 11:31:26PM 27 points [-]

Let's turn this around.

What opportunities are you missing by overrating risks? I am almost certain you are not socially courageous enough. Hanson always goes on about missed opportunities from FDA being too strict.

Humans in general are pretty risk averse. Which means the threat of missed opportunities is actually a lot larger than other threats!!! When I realized this, it was a big moment. I haven't compiled it fully yet, but it has really improved things over the last few weeks.

Comment author: torekp 31 May 2012 01:43:11AM 9 points [-]

I am almost certain you are not socially courageous enough.

Nyan, you the man! Seriously, I did like your other thread, and like it even more now that I see this context.

Comment author: [deleted] 31 May 2012 01:59:50AM *  5 points [-]

Nyan, you the man!

Thanks, that makes me happy!

Seriously, I did like your other thread, and like it even more now that I see this context.

I assume you mean my affection protocol. You'll have to explain the connection, I don't get it.

(is it just that your model of me is good enough to notice that I was nervous as fuck about that post and had to remind myself of about this courage idea and fall back on decision theory multiple times?)

Comment author: khafra 31 May 2012 02:58:13PM 3 points [-]

(is it just that your model of me is good enough to notice that I was nervous as fuck about that post and had to remind myself of about this courage idea and fall back on decision theory multiple times?)

That's the way I read it. It takes a brave man to announce to a room full of valued acquaintances that he'd like a hug; non-hugging is an equilibrium with a first-mover penalty, even if it turns out to be suboptimal.

Comment author: [deleted] 31 May 2012 10:27:36AM 3 points [-]

What opportunities are you missing by overrating risks? I am almost certain you are not socially courageous enough. Hanson always goes on about missed opportunities from FDA being too strict.

Maybe, more than “overrating risks”, that's another instance of the ethical injunctions for which people wouldn't push a fat man off a bridge to save five people chained on a railway.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 31 May 2012 12:18:12AM 2 points [-]

Funny, I just realized the same thing.

And spending a lot of effort on avoiding the bad stuff doesn't just mean you miss out on good stuff either. By failing to take advantage of opportunities, you leave yourself more vulnerable to bad things that wouldn't have been a threat if you had taken advantage of earlier opportunities.

And yes, the Federal Death Administrators are killing us with all their "protection".

Comment author: [deleted] 31 May 2012 12:24:24AM 16 points [-]

Federal Death Administrators

This is great! I'll have to use tha-

People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed... Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back - providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

Excuse me. My politics detector went off.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 31 May 2012 01:53:36AM -2 points [-]

Oh noes! Not politics!

Comment author: Jesper_Ostman 31 May 2012 02:02:38PM 1 point [-]

Possible examples: Taking part in paid medical experiments. Selling kidney.

Comment author: [deleted] 31 May 2012 03:49:42PM 0 points [-]

Selling kidney.

This is after I die (or cryopreserve)? Or before? How much money?

Comment author: Vaniver 31 May 2012 05:31:50PM 1 point [-]

It is currently only legal in Iran, where prices wouldn't be enough to cover the plane ticket out there. I recommend against it for Americans or Canadians until it becomes legal here.

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