= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (604)
In general, though, that argument is the Galileo gambit and not a very good argument.
There's a more charitable reading of this comment, which is just "the absurdity heuristic is not all that reliable in some domains."
What makes this the Galileo Gambit is that the absurdity factor is being turned into alleged support (by affective association with the positive benefits of air travel and frequent flier miles) rather than just being neutralized. Contrast to http://lesswrong.com/lw/j1/stranger_than_history/ where absurdity is being pointed out as a fallible heuristic but not being associated with positives.
That's the way I interpreted it. (How comes I tend to read pretty much anythingยน charitably?)