EmuSam comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (July 2012) - Less Wrong

20 Post author: ciphergoth 18 July 2012 05:24PM

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Comment author: EmuSam 19 July 2012 04:49:37AM 7 points [-]

Hello.

I was raised by a rationalist economist. At some point I got the idea that I wanted to be a statistical outlier, and also that irrationality was the outlier. After starting to pay attention to current events and polls, I'm now pretty sure that the second premise is incorrect.

I still have many thought patterns from that period that I find difficult to overcome. I try to counter them in the more important decisions by assigning WAG numerical values and working through equations to find a weighted output. I read more non-fiction than fiction now, and I am working with a mental health professional to overcome some of those patterns. I suppose I consider myself to have a good rationalist grounding while being used to completely ignoring it in my everyday life.

I found Less Wrong through FreethoughtBlogs and "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationalism." I added it to my feed reader and have been forcing my economist to help me work though some of the more science-of-choice oriented posts.

Comment author: [deleted] 19 July 2012 11:53:10AM 1 point [-]

WAG

???

The only expansion of that I can find with Google (Wifes And Girlfriends [of footballers]) doesn't seem too relevant.

Comment author: Morendil 19 July 2012 12:13:26PM 7 points [-]

Wild Ass Guess.

Comment author: DaFranker 19 July 2012 02:05:53PM *  3 points [-]

Was that just meta, or did you already know it? In what fields would the saying be more common, out of curiosity?

Comment author: evand 19 July 2012 05:24:51PM 5 points [-]

It's reasonably common among engineers in my experience. Along with SWAG -- scientific wild-assed guessed, intended to denote something that has minimal support -- an estimation that is the output of combining WAGs and actual data, for example.

Comment author: Davidmanheim 19 July 2012 11:44:24PM 2 points [-]

He may not have known it, but it's used. I worked in Catastrophe Risk modeling, and it was a term that applied to what our clients and competitors did; not ourselves, we had rigorous methodologies that were not discussed because they were "trade secrets," or as I came to understand, what is referred to below as SWAG.

I have heard engineers use it as well..