Overcoming bias guy meme | quickmeme

saliency

http://www.quickmeme.com/Overcoming-bias-guy/popular/1/?upcoming

Having only become involved with Lesswrong after it had split off, I've never seen the appeal of "Overcoming Bias." There are a few interesting posts, but a lot of dross and random weird political/incendiary things (like the above). All the good stuff seems to be expressed better elsewhere (mainly on LW).

Possibly this just means LW's voting system is doing its job, but I still notice I'm confused by the appeal. Can anyone enlighten me?

Well, I'll stick up for OB and Hanson.

Hanson posts about interesting things in a droll way. That's intentional, I believe: sometimes he seems to be trying to get a rise out of people, but most of the time he's trying to reduce emotional reactions to his posts.

He's really, really invested in ideas like evolution: simple theories that explain lots of different phenomena. This is why we get lots and lots of posts about signaling, near/far, and farmers/foragers. He thinks that these explain far more than people currently give them credit, so he's trying to exp... (read more)

3coffeespoons13y

Overcoming Bias can be interesting, but (as with the post on rape) I often feel that people like me (with left/feminist leanings) are being trolled.

2ikrase13y

Not sure. Overcoming bias is both Hanson's own blog (where he pushes ideas such as ems (those are uploaded people, right?) and cynicism) and a general project about rationality / what it says on the tin. I've always liked the Less Wrong aristocracy (Compliment!) better as they often seem to make fewer "theory class" mistakes.