beoShaffer comments on Backward Reasoning Over Decision Trees - Less Wrong

60 Post author: Yvain 30 June 2012 03:17AM

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Comment author: beoShaffer 28 June 2012 04:45:14AM 9 points [-]

Pretty good so far. I personally felt like the line-item example was pretty illuminative, but using real political examples instead of sticking with the national game theory month approach is a bit iffy. In particular the line

If Republicans are perfectly rational agents (a sentiment, I admit, open to doubt)

Can easily be interpreted as an attack on republicans.

Comment author: Yvain 28 June 2012 11:54:55PM 6 points [-]

Removed.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 28 June 2012 11:28:46AM 6 points [-]

but using real political examples instead of sticking with the national game theory month approach is a bit iffy

I actually thought it was better to have a real political example - made it feel less like an abstract toy example and more like something with actual real-world relevance.

Comment author: drethelin 28 June 2012 05:17:20AM 3 points [-]

Agreed. Removing the parenthetical would strictly improve this in my mind

Comment author: [deleted] 28 June 2012 10:50:46AM 3 points [-]

Or better, adding “given that they are human” at the end of it. (OTOH, it's not that implausible that in that context they would make the same choice that perfectly rational agents would.)