ITakeBets comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89 - Less Wrong
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Without endorsing any part of this comment dealing with events which have yet to take place, I congratulate user 75th who receives many Bayes points for this:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/bfo/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/6aih
When I first saw this comment, it was downvoted to... I forget, -6 or something. Going by the percentage score, at least 11 people downvoted it. From the replies, some people didn't like the tone of apparent certainty with which 75th spoke. Sounded uppity to them, I guess. It was at +3 before I linked to it on /r/HPMOR.
I wanted to say something at the time about that, and how penalizing people for sounding certain or uppity or above-the-status-you-assign-them can potentially lead you to ignore people who are actually competent, but at the time all I could say was "Why are people downvoting this? It's a testable prediction" whereupon it climbed up to above 0.
Everyone who downvoted 75th or agreed with the downvotes at the time, please take note. Speaking in a tone of what seems-to-you like inappropriate certainty does not always indicate that someone is arrogant. Sometimes they have seen something you have not.
I am breaking my "only comment on LW if you expect some benefit" rule because I am in a somewhat unique position to comment on this, and I agree with Eliezer that "penalizing people for sounding certain or uppity or above-the-status-you-assign-them can potentially lead you to ignore people who are actually competent". See, I made this update at an earlier time under not-dissimilar circumstances. (In short, I thought ArisKatsaris was making an overconfident prediction about HPMoR, bet against him, and lost.)
An excerpt from my journal, 3/28/2012:
So, you know, here's a chance to learn a $30 lesson for free, people.