Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 02 January 2013 05:23PM

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 02 January 2013 09:50:35AM 8 points [-]

There's a more charitable reading of this comment, which is just "the absurdity heuristic is not all that reliable in some domains."

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2013 10:17:06AM 14 points [-]

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.