ctuck comments on Correspondence Bias - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 June 2007 12:58AM

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Comment author: ctuck 30 May 2012 03:38:02PM 2 points [-]

I don't think it's a false consensus at all to ask a question like "Shouldn't we all care about saving the world?".

Taken literally, there can be no consensus to a question. Both the question asker and answerer can share a consensus about the answer to the question, but the question itself has no definitive truth value and therefore cannot be agreed upon (assuming the question does not presume information).

However, even if you assume that the question was hypothetical it's still not a case of false consensus. The hypothetical question would translate to the statement "We should all care about saving the world". This is a statement of Nick_Tarleton's opinion. Nothing he's said implies that he believes that everyone or even the majority of people agree with his opinion. He has only stated what that opinion is.

If he had asked the hypothetical question "Doesn't everyone care about saving the world?" or stated "Everyone cares about saving the world" that would be a different matter completely. Then he would be implying that others shared his view without providing any statistical reasoning to back it up.