patrissimo comments on Dissenting Views - Less Wrong

19 Post author: byrnema 26 May 2009 06:55PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (207)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: patrissimo 28 May 2009 11:39:22PM 6 points [-]

I concur. We seem more interested in phenomena which are interesting psychologically than which are useful. This should not be surprising - interesting phenomena are fun to read about. Implementing a new cognitive habit takes hard work and repetition. Perhaps it is like divorcing warm fuzzies from utilons - we should differentiate from "biases that are fun to read/think about" and "practices which will help you become less wrong."

As a metaphor, consider flashy spinning kicks vs. pushups in martial arts. The former are much more fun to watch and think about, but boring exercises to build strength and coordination are much more basic and important.