Cyan comments on Generalizing From One Example - Less Wrong

259 Post author: Yvain 28 April 2009 10:00PM

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Comment author: jimmy 29 April 2009 03:17:57AM 9 points [-]

In against disclaimers Robin argues against the idea that those qualifiers should be included

The idea is that among aspiring rationalists, it is silly to assume that "Any general claim about human behavior is an absolute law without exception unless it includes qualifiers like "tends" or "often."". Since there are always exceptions, you can drop the qualifier without losing any information.

Comment author: Cyan 29 April 2009 04:12:02AM *  1 point [-]

I'm just going to link my own comment on Robin's post. Short version: include written disclaimers if the idea you want to convey includes disclaimers.