Rationality Quotes August 2013

7 Post author: Vaniver 02 August 2013 08:59PM

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

  • Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
  • Do not quote yourself.
  • Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
  • No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Comments (733)

Comment author: Alejandro1 01 August 2013 08:45:40PM *  31 points [-]

It's a horrible feeling when you don't understand why you did something.

-- Dennis Monokroussos

Comment author: lavalamp 01 August 2013 11:03:03PM 27 points [-]

It's probably a much more accurate feeling than the opposite one, though...

Comment author: [deleted] 02 August 2013 09:21:08PM 2 points [-]

If I understand why I did something, I want to believe ...

Comment author: wedrifid 02 August 2013 05:17:17AM *  7 points [-]

It's a horrible feeling when you don't understand why you did something.

That is an interesting observation. For my part I do not experience horror in those circumstances, merely curiosity and uncertainty.

Comment author: Alejandro1 02 August 2013 10:47:10AM 2 points [-]

It depends on the context, in particular, whether the situation is one where you "must" have a good reason for your actions. Your reaction is appropriate for most ordinary situations; his is appropriate for the context he's talking about (doing a different movement than than the one you intended in a chess game) and other high stakes situations (blurting an answer you know is wrong in an examination, saying/doing something awkward on a date, making a risky movement driving your car…)

Comment author: wedrifid 02 August 2013 01:41:12PM 9 points [-]

his is appropriate for the context he's talking about (doing a different movement than than the one you intended in a chess game) and other high stakes situations (blurting an answer you know is wrong in an examination, saying/doing something awkward on a date, making a risky movement driving your car…)

I experience horrible feelings when I humiliate myself or put myself at risk. This phenomenon seems to occur independently of whether I have a good causal model for why I did those things.

Comment author: Desrtopa 04 August 2013 10:45:38PM 10 points [-]

I think it may depend a lot on how well the action fits into your schema for reasonable behavior.

I have mild OCD. Its manifestations are usually unnoticeable to other people, and generally don't interfere with the ordinary function of my life, but occasionally lead to my engaging in behaviors that no ordinary person would consider worthwhile. The single most extreme manifestation, which still stands out in my memory, was a time when I was playing a video game, and saved my game file, then, doubting my own memory that I had saved it, did it again... and again... and again... until I had saved at least seven times, each time convinced that I couldn't yet be sure I had saved it "enough."

Afterwards, I was horrified at my own actions, because what I had just done was too obviously crazy to just handwave away.

Comment author: Benito 01 August 2013 09:15:24PM *  32 points [-]

This analogy, this passage from the finite to infinite, is beset with pitfalls. How did Euler avoid them? He was a genius, some people will answer, and of course that is no explanation at all. Euler has shrewd reasons for trusting his discovery. We can understand his reasons with a little common sense, without any miraculous insight specific to genius.

  • G. Polya, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning Vol. 1
Comment author: Martin-2 01 August 2013 10:19:17PM 4 points [-]

It is not July. It is August.

Comment author: Vaniver 01 August 2013 10:48:47PM *  3 points [-]

Fixed! The perils of copy/paste.

Comment author: malcolmocean 01 August 2013 11:11:59PM *  21 points [-]

Saw this under "latest rationality quotes" and was like "man, I'm really missing the context as to how this is a rationality quote."

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 August 2013 12:38:25AM 34 points [-]

"If it July, I desire to believe it is July. If it is August, I desire to believe it is August..."

Comment author: linkhyrule5 02 August 2013 08:17:42AM 9 points [-]

If the Romans had been more willing to rename months they were unwilling to keep in their original places, we might have a much saner calendar.

Comment author: DanArmak 02 August 2013 11:03:43AM 23 points [-]

If people in the 1500 years since the Romans had been more willing to rename months...

Comment author: FiftyTwo 04 August 2013 03:46:23PM 0 points [-]

Now you've got me thinking about the minimum level of rationality/processing power necessary to determine the month accurately...

Comment author: Ambition 02 August 2013 02:32:30AM 9 points [-]

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

-Thomas Jefferson

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 August 2013 09:01:03PM 23 points [-]

One who possesses a maximum-entropy prior is further from the truth than one who possesses an inductive prior riddled with many specific falsehoods and errors. Or more to the point, someone who endorses knowing nothing as a desirable state for fear of accepting falsehoods is further from the truth than somebody who believes many things, some of them false, but tries to pay attention and go on learning.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 August 2013 12:31:21AM 8 points [-]

How about "If you know nothing and are willing to learn, you're closer to the truth than someone who's attached to falsehoods"? Even then, I suppose you'd need to throw in something about the speed of learning.

Comment author: Ambition 03 August 2013 01:18:16AM *  3 points [-]

He who knows nothing is further from the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors, but has the courage to acknowledge them as so.

-LessWrong Community

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 02 August 2013 02:48:21AM 29 points [-]

Once there was a miser, who to save money would eat nothing but oatmeal. And what's more, he would make a great big batch of it at the start of every week, and put it in a drawer, and when he wanted a meal he would slice off a piece and eat it cold; thus he saved on firewood. Now, by the end of the week, the oatmeal would be somewhat moldy and not very appetising; and so to make himself eat it, the miser would take out a bottle of good whiskey, and pour himself a glass, and say "All right, Olai, eat your oatmeal and when you're done, you can have a dram." Then he would eat his moldy oatmeal, and when he was done he'd laugh and pour the whiskey back in the bottle, and say "Hah! And you believed that? There's one born every minute, to be sure!" And thus he had a great savings in whiskey as well.

-- Norwegian folktale.

Comment author: DanArmak 03 August 2013 09:46:18AM 8 points [-]

I don't understand this rationality quote. Is it about fighting akrasia? Self-hacking to effectively saving money? It clearly describes a method that wouldn't actually work, and it could work as humour, but what does it mean as a rationality tale?

Comment author: Benito 03 August 2013 12:04:49PM 3 points [-]

I thought the way he deceived his conscious mind, and never learned, was interesting.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 03 August 2013 01:43:31PM 4 points [-]

It's interesting to view this story from source-code-swap Prisoner's Dilemma / Timeless Decision Theory perspective. This can be a perfect epigraph in an article dedicated to it.

Comment author: danlucraft 03 August 2013 01:45:28PM 9 points [-]

In the context of LW, I took it as an amusing critique of the whole idea of rewarding yourself for behaviours you want to do more .

Comment author: wedrifid 03 August 2013 04:10:23PM *  5 points [-]

I don't understand this rationality quote. Is it about fighting akrasia? Self-hacking to effectively saving money? It clearly describes a method that wouldn't actually work, and it could work as humour, but what does it mean as a rationality tale?

It could be used as an effective "How to create an Ugh Field and undermine all future self-discipline attempts" instruction manual. It isn't a rationality tale. It is confusing that 40 people evidently consider it to be one. (But only a little bit confusing. I usually expect non-rationalist quotes that would be accepted as jokes or inspirational quotes elsewhere to get around 10 upvotes in this thread regardless of merit. That means I'm surprised about the degree of positive reception.)

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 03 August 2013 06:34:06PM 11 points [-]

It's either a cautionary tale about the dangers of deceiving yourself, or a humorous look at the impossibility of actually doing so.

Comment author: ChrisPine 04 August 2013 05:28:06PM 30 points [-]

It's a cautionary tale about Norwegian food.

Comment author: MixedNuts 04 August 2013 05:28:41PM 10 points [-]

Betcha it'd work. I'm going to set a piece of candy in front of me, work for half an hour, and then put it back, at least once a day for a week.

Comment author: shminux 02 August 2013 03:23:24AM 26 points [-]

A man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.

Unknown

Comment author: peter_hurford 02 August 2013 01:42:16PM 8 points [-]

This could be studied empirically.

Comment author: dspeyer 04 August 2013 09:29:25PM 4 points [-]

Difficult. The "distance" is metaphorical, and this probably doesn't apply when there's an easy, unambiguous, generally accepted metric. Without that, how do we do the study?

Still, if you have a way, it could be interesting.

Comment author: AndHisHorse 04 August 2013 11:14:25PM 3 points [-]

If there is no easy, unambiguous generally accepted metric, that would seem to imply that everyone is a poor judge of distance - making the quote trivially true.

Comment author: Estarlio 02 August 2013 02:09:33PM 2 points [-]

Or thinks he's got better leverage than you.

Comment author: Particleman 02 August 2013 06:07:05AM 38 points [-]

In 2002, Wizards of the Coast put out Star Wars: The Trading Card Game designed by Richard Garfield.

As Richard modeled the game after a miniatures game, it made use of many six-sided dice. In combat, cards' damage was designated by how many six-sided dice they rolled. Wizards chose to stop producing the game due to poor sales. One of the contributing factors given through market research was that gamers seem to dislike six-sided dice in their trading card game.

Here's the kicker. When you dug deeper into the comments they equated dice with "lack of skill." But the game rolled huge amounts of dice. That greatly increased the consistency. (What I mean by this is that if you rolled a million dice, your chance of averaging 3.5 is much higher than if you rolled ten.) Players, though, equated lots of dice rolling with the game being "more random" even though that contradicts the actual math.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 August 2013 09:20:45PM 15 points [-]

What I mean by this is that if you rolled a million dice, your chance of averaging 3.5 is much higher than if you rolled ten.

The chance of averaging exactly 3.5 would be a hell of a lot smaller. The chance of averaging between 3.45 and 3.55 would be larger, though.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 August 2013 06:22:12AM 23 points [-]

Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.

Reynolds' law

Comment author: CronoDAS 03 August 2013 02:03:41AM 4 points [-]
Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 August 2013 03:39:56PM 4 points [-]

Status markers frequently indicate unusual access to resources as well as or even instead of character traits.

Subsidizing status markers dilutes them by making them less common.

How would you tell which factor is more important in the dilution of a status marker?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 August 2013 06:27:31AM *  4 points [-]

Historically, most hackers have been not only men, but men of a sort of Mannie O’Kelly-Davis “git ‘er done” variety, and that’s beginning to change now, so new norms of behavior must be adopted in order to create a welcoming and inclusive community.

  • Jeff Read

I have a better idea. Let’s drive away people unwilling to adopt that “git’r'done” attitude with withering scorn, rather than waste our time pacifying tender-minded ninnies and grievance collectors. That way we might continue to actually, you know, get stuff done.

Eric Raymond

Comment author: MixedNuts 02 August 2013 09:36:12AM 12 points [-]

Empirically, heaping scorn on everyone and seeing who sticks around leads to lots of time wasted on flame wars.

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 02 August 2013 11:26:22AM 0 points [-]

While the more socially enlightened attitudes lead to very effective and high signal-to-noise conflict handling, as can be observed on Tumblr and MetaFilter?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 02 August 2013 12:57:15PM 9 points [-]

Empirically, heaping scorn on everyone and seeing who sticks around

Eric Raymond isn't suggesting that. Why are you?

Comment author: wedrifid 02 August 2013 01:33:46PM *  15 points [-]

Empirically, heaping scorn on everyone and seeing who sticks around leads to lots of time wasted on flame wars.

Straw man. The grandparent explicitly made the scorn conditional, not 'on everyone'.

Comment author: Lumifer 02 August 2013 05:07:53PM 1 point [-]

A relevant example:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/linus-torvalds-defends-his-right-to-shame-linux-kernel-developers/

Linux kernel seems to me a quite well-managed operation (of herding cats, too!) that doesn't waste lots of time on flame wars.

Comment author: novalis 04 August 2013 01:47:11AM 6 points [-]

Linux kernel seems to me a quite well-managed operation (of herding cats, too!) that doesn't waste lots of time on flame wars.

I don't follow kernel development much. Recently, a colleague pointed me to the rdrand instruction. I was curious about Linux kernel support for it, and I found this thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1173350

Notice that Linus spends a bunch of time (a) flaming people and (b) being wrong about how crypto works (even though the issue was not relevant to the patch).

Is this typical of the linux-kernel mailing list? I decided to look at the latest hundred messages. I saw some minor rudeness, but nothing at that level. Of course, none of these messages were from Linus. But I didn't have to go back more than a few days to find Linus saying things like, "some ass-wipe inside the android team." Imagine if you were that Android developer, and you were reading that email? Would that make you want to work on Linux? Or would that make you want to go find a project where the leader doesn't shit on people?

Here's a revealing quote from one recent message from Linus: "Otherwise I'll have to start shouting at people again." Notice that Linus perceives shouting as a punishment. He's right to do so, as that's how people take it. Sure, "don't get offended", "git 'er done", etc -- but realistically, developers are human and don't necessarily have time to do a bunch of CBT so that they can brush off insults.

Some people, I guess, can continue to be productive after their project leader insults them. The rest either have periodic drops in productivity, or choose to work on projects which are run by people willing to act professionally.

tl;dr: Would you put up with a boss who frequently called you an idiot in public?

Comment author: [deleted] 02 August 2013 09:47:53PM *  8 points [-]

Here's my thought process upon reading this. (Initially, I assumed “git 'er done” meant something like ‘women are unimportant except as sex objects, and I misread “unwilling” as “willing”.)

  • ‘How comes that guy, who when talking about sex on his blog gets mind-killed to the point of forgetting how to do high-school maths, makes so much sense everywhere else? Maybe he was saner when younger, then got worse with age, or something.’ I follow the link, expecting it to go to somewhere other than Armed and Dangerous, e.g. somewhere on catb.org.
  • I notice the link does go to his blog, and to a recent post at that. ‘So he is still capable of talking sense about such topics after all?’ I notice I am confused.
  • I realize he said “unwilling” not “willing”. ‘Er... Nope. He's crazy as usual.’
  • Appalled at the idea that anyone, even ESR, would say anything like that in public with an almost straight face, I decide to look “git 'er done” up. ‘Oh, that makes perfect sense, and I agree with him. But that's not about sex (except insofar as the cut-through-the-bullshit communication style is less rare among men than among women), so that doesn't actually show he's not mind-killed beyond all repair.’

(Anyway, if an adult woman complains because you called her a girl, the course of action that leaves you the most time to get stuff done is apologizing, not doing that again, and getting back to work, not endlessly whining about how ridiculous the PC crowd are.)

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 03 August 2013 05:11:35AM 0 points [-]

(Anyway, if an adult woman complains because you called her a girl, the course of action that leaves you the most time to get stuff done is apologizing, not doing that again, and getting back to work, not endlessly whining about how ridiculous the PC crowd are.)

Not necessarily, it might just encourage further frivolous complaints.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 August 2013 03:15:38PM 3 points [-]

As opposed to feeding trolls, which is widely known to be extremely effective in making them shut up?

Comment author: wedrifid 04 August 2013 06:00:12PM *  6 points [-]

As opposed to feeding trolls, which is widely known to be extremely effective in making them shut up?

In the context the group you position here as 'trolls' are described as frivolous complainers. You advocate apologising and complying. Eugine is correct in pointing out that this can represent a perverse incentive (both in theory and in often observed practice).

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 August 2013 12:41:17AM 4 points [-]

The courtesy rules at LW are pretty strict. I don't know whether things are different at CFAR and MIRI, but does insufficient scorn interfere with things getting done?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 03 August 2013 04:35:43AM 0 points [-]

We use the karma system for that.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 August 2013 03:37:08PM 2 points [-]

LW uses a karma system. I assume that CFAR and MIRI include a lot of in person and private conversation which isn't subject to a karma system.

How do you think the effectiveness of cultures which have karma + courtesy compares to cultures which permit flaming?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 August 2013 06:34:28AM 8 points [-]

Wicked people exist. Nothing avails except to set them apart from innocent people. And many people, neither wicked nor innocent, but watchful, dissembling, and calculating of their chances, ponder our reaction to wickedness as a clue to what they might profitably do.

James Wilson

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 August 2013 05:32:04PM 4 points [-]
Comment author: wedrifid 02 August 2013 05:41:20PM 4 points [-]

Counter-quote.

Only loosely. The insightful part of the grandparent quote is the third sentence, which complements the moral-greyness issue quite well.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 August 2013 06:26:45PM 2 points [-]

I think it is only slightly insightful, at best. It's a gross simplification of how most people experience, and actually (under-the-hood) perform, moral calculations, and it simplifies away most of the interesting stuff.

Comment author: Cthulhoo 02 August 2013 07:33:43AM 9 points [-]

Whatever alleged "truth" is proven by results to be but an empty fiction, let it be unceremoniously flung into the outer darkness, among the dead gods, dead empires, dead philosophies, and other useless lumber and wreckage!

Anton Lavey, The Satanic Bible, The Book of Satan II

Comment author: FiftyTwo 04 August 2013 03:45:16PM 2 points [-]

Isn't it better to examine a falsehood to discover why it was so popular and appealing before throwing it away?

Comment author: ChrisPine 04 August 2013 05:30:38PM 0 points [-]

Only if they won't let you throw it away.

Comment author: AndHisHorse 04 August 2013 07:18:34PM 6 points [-]

Then, to continue the metaphor, we should study it by telescope from afar, not as a present and influential entity in our own sphere of existence, but rather a distant body, informative but impotent, the object of curiosity rather than devotion.

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 02 August 2013 08:26:41AM *  23 points [-]

Rin: "Even I make mistakes once in a while."

Shirou (thinking): ...This is hard. Would it be good for her if I correct her and point out that she makes mistakes often, not just once in a while?

Fate/stay night

Comment author: sketerpot 03 August 2013 02:21:26AM 4 points [-]

He just needs to get Saber to say it. Saber often tells people, in a bluntly matter-of-fact way, that they're making a mistake. Rin knows this. If Shiro said it, though, she'd think it was some kind of dominance thing and get mad.

(Maybe I'm over-analyzing this.)

Comment author: FiftyTwo 04 August 2013 03:40:45PM 5 points [-]

Slightly off-topic, but I keep seeing Fate/Stay night referenced on here, is it particularly 'rationalist' or do people just like it as entertainment?

Comment author: Desrtopa 04 August 2013 10:48:41PM 3 points [-]

It has some elements that stand out in terms of rationalist virtue, and many others which don't.

I found it to be very much a mixed bag, but the things it did well, I thought it did exceptionally well.

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 02 August 2013 08:28:32AM 19 points [-]

But, Senjougahara, can I set a condition too? A condition, or, well, something like a promise. Don't ever pretend you can see something that you can't, or that you can't see something that you can. If our viewpoints are inconsistent, let's talk it over. Promise me.

Bakemonogatari

Comment author: Alejandro1 02 August 2013 10:55:14AM 30 points [-]

Now, now, perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything.

--Professor Farnsworth, Futurama.

Comment author: lavalamp 02 August 2013 08:22:28PM 25 points [-]

The threat of massive perfectly symmetrical violence, on the other hand...

Comment author: sketerpot 03 August 2013 02:22:52AM 9 points [-]

Such a threat can also be effective for asymmetrical violence -- no matter which way the asymmetry goes.

Comment author: jbay 02 August 2013 02:10:09PM 10 points [-]

But, unlike other species, we also know how not to know. We employ this unique ability to suppress our knowledge not just of mortality, but of everything we find uncomfortable, until our survival strategy becomes a threat to our survival.

[...] There is no virtue in sustaining a set of beliefs, regardless of the evidence. There is no virtue in either following other people unquestioningly or in cultivating a loyal and unquestioning band of followers.

While you can be definitively wrong, you cannot be definitely right. The best anyone can do is constantly to review the evidence and to keep improving and updating their knowledge. Journalism which attempts this is worth reading. Journalism which does not is a waste of time."

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 02:34:29AM *  8 points [-]

There is no virtue in either following other people unquestioningly or in cultivating a loyal and unquestioning band of followers.

True, but possibly dangerously close to "There is no virtue in following other people or in cultivating followers".

Comment author: DSherron 04 August 2013 10:49:14PM 7 points [-]

While you can be definitively wrong, you cannot be definitely right.

Not true. Trivially, if A is definitively wrong, then ~A is definitively right. Popperian falsification is trumped by Bayes' Theorem.

Note: This means that you cannot be definitively wrong, not that you can be definitively right.

Comment author: Joshua_Blaine 02 August 2013 05:49:04PM 14 points [-]

The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one.

-- GLaDOS from Portal 2

Comment author: shminux 02 August 2013 06:08:29PM 1 point [-]

If you define best as easiest.

Comment author: DSherron 02 August 2013 07:29:38PM 2 points [-]

Alternatively, if you define solution such that any two given solutions are equally acceptable with respect to the original problem.

Comment author: Vaniver 02 August 2013 08:23:14PM 4 points [-]

I see it as more of a "rather than sorting projects by revenue, make sure to sort them by profit," combined with "in cases where revenue is concave and cost linear, which happen frequently, the lowest cost project is probably going to be the highest profit."

Comment author: dspeyer 04 August 2013 09:24:20PM 4 points [-]

That plus "beware inflated revenue estimates, especially for have-it-all type plans". Cost estimates are often much more accurate.

Comment author: Joshua_Blaine 02 August 2013 08:27:48PM 5 points [-]

If best is defined as easiest, then the "usually" within the quote is entirely superfluous. "If" statements are logically exception-less, and the Law of Conserved Conversation (That i've just made up) means that "usually" implies exceptions. Otherwise it would be excluded from the quote. So I say, pedantically, "duh. but you're missing the point a bit, aren't you mate?"

I like to think of the principle as a kind of Occam's for action. Don't take elaborate actions to produce some solution that is otherwise trivially easy to produce.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 August 2013 10:09:08PM 2 points [-]

the Law of Conserved Conversation (That i've just made up)

You may want to read something about pragmatics, starting with e.g. the section on conversational implicatures in Chapter 1 of CGEL.

(Your made-up law sounds related to these.)

Comment author: Joshua_Blaine 03 August 2013 12:35:40AM 2 points [-]

Huh. The Maxim of Relation does sound very much like what I was trying to go for.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 August 2013 09:03:39PM 23 points [-]

If you cast out all the easy strategies that don't actually work as non-'solutions', then sure, in what remains among the set of solutions, the best is often the easiest, though not easy. I can think of much harder ways to save the world and I'm not trying any of them.

Comment author: Martin-2 02 August 2013 08:58:57PM *  0 points [-]

Elayne blinked in shock. “You would have actually done it? Just… left us alone? To fight?”

"Some argued for it," Haman said.

“I myself took that position,” the woman said. “I made the argument, though I did not truly believe it was right.”

“What?” Loial asked [...] “But why did you-“

“An argument must have opposition if it is to prove itself, my son,” she said. “One who argues truly learns the depth of his commitment through adversity. Did you not learn that trees grow roots most strongly when wind blows through them?”

Covril, The Wheel of Time

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 02:26:06AM *  5 points [-]

Is that true (for trees or people)?

Edit: For one example, this person currently linked in the sidebar isn't sure.

Comment author: Martin-2 03 August 2013 08:25:13AM 1 point [-]

If this quote were about people improving through adversity I wouldn't have posted it (I also read that article). But I think it's true for arguments. The last sentence does a better job of fitting the character than illuminating the point so I could have left it out.

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 08:33:36AM 0 points [-]

Do arguments themselves "improve", rather than simply being right or wrong?

Comment author: Martin-2 03 August 2013 09:14:00AM *  3 points [-]

Maybe, since arguments have component parts that can be individually right or wrong; or maybe not, since chains of reasoning rely on every single link; or maybe, since my argument improves (along with my beliefs) as I toss out and replace the old one.

Come to think of it, if "trees grow roots most strongly when wind blows through them" because the trees with weak roots can't survive in those conditions then this would make a very bad metaphor for people.

Comment author: Nornagest 03 August 2013 10:42:40PM *  8 points [-]

Come to think of it, if "trees grow roots most strongly when wind blows through them" because the trees with weak roots can't survive in those conditions then this would make a very bad metaphor for people.

No, it's probably accurate as stated. I don't know about trees as such, but if you try to start vegetable seedlings indoors and then transfer them outside, they'll often die in the first major wind; the solution is to get the air around them moving while they're still indoors (as with a fan), which causes them to devote resources to growing stronger root systems and stems.

Comment author: hylleddin 02 August 2013 09:24:40PM *  13 points [-]

The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.

-- Tillaume, The Alloy of Law

Comment author: cody-bryce 02 August 2013 10:28:23PM 10 points [-]

I just think it's good to be confident. If I'm not on my team why should anybody else be?

-Robert Downey Jr.

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 02:25:30AM 11 points [-]

I think it's good to be well-calibrated.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 August 2013 03:06:40AM *  13 points [-]

I think it's good to be well-calibrated.

It is usually best to be socially confident while making well-calibrated predictions of success. The two are only slightly related and Downey is definitely talking about the social kind of confidence.

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 04:08:28AM *  2 points [-]

Good point. I'm still not sure I like his framing of social interactions as getting people on "your" team (which I may be partly biased in by the source of the quote), but the objection in my initial post isn't a good one.

Comment author: DanArmak 03 August 2013 09:36:13AM 1 point [-]

I think it's best to be well-calibrated, use that to choose your team as one that's going to succeed, and then to be confident.

Comment author: cody-bryce 03 August 2013 04:48:51AM 0 points [-]
Comment author: dspeyer 04 August 2013 09:16:21PM 2 points [-]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the quote, but this seems to wither if you have something to protect. If I'm having surgery, I don't really want the team of expert surgeons listening to my suggestions. I shouldn't be on my team because I'm not qualified. Highly qualified people should be so that my team will win (and I get to live).

Comment author: RichardKennaway 04 August 2013 10:41:55PM 2 points [-]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the quote, but this seems to wither if you have something to protect.

Only if you're not the one with the responsibility to do something to protect it. I don't know the context of the quote, other than apparently being from an interview (with the actor, not any character he has played), but I read it as being about your own efforts to accomplish something. In such matters, you are the first person on your team, and you won't get any others on board by telling them you're not sure this is a good idea. Once you've made the decision that you are going to go for it, you have to then go for it, not sit around wondering if it's the right decision. If you're not acting on a decision, you didn't make it.

Comment author: cody-bryce 02 August 2013 10:29:11PM 24 points [-]

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.

-Gloria Steinem

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 02:14:58AM 3 points [-]

Far too few people limit their aspirations to what they can accomplish working alone.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 03 August 2013 03:08:11AM *  0 points [-]

Far too many people...

Completely putting teamwork aside, most major contributions to humanity were achieved by standing on the shoulders of those who came before.

Comment author: cody-bryce 03 August 2013 04:42:23AM 1 point [-]

You still have to be the right person to be the right person in a team....?

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 05:32:31AM *  2 points [-]

But you don't have to be perfect to be the right person in a team, and you don't have to be "the" right person to be an asset to a team. People with low self-confidence plus low social confidence (plus possibly moralistic ideas about self-reliance) will try to self-improve through their own efforts rather than seeking help, regardless of how much less effective it is, believing they're not worth someone else's attention yet, or being afraid of owing someone, or whatever; quotes like Steinem's reinforce that.

...Maybe. I don't have any actual sources, so I could be totally wrong. Still, I'm not sure I like the focus on "being" rather than doing things.

Comment author: cody-bryce 03 August 2013 04:51:23PM 0 points [-]

But you don't have to be perfect to be the right person in a team, and you don't have to be "the" right person to be an asset to a team.

Who said anything about being perfect?

And if you're an asset, you sound prettymuch like the right person to me.

Maybe. I don't have any actual sources, so I could be totally wrong. Still, I'm not sure I like the focus on "being" rather than doing things.

To me the clause "be the right person" sounds very much active/action-based.

Comment author: DanArmak 03 August 2013 09:34:17AM *  8 points [-]

I read that as "looking for the right person to fall in love with". Then the sense is "be the right person for someone else". But that achieves a different goal entirely, since it doesn't make the other person right for you.

There are many cases where you want a different person right for the task.

Name three!

Romantic partners (inherently), trading and working partners (allowing you to specialize in your comparative advantage), deputies and office-holders (allowing you to deputize), soldiers (allowing you to send someone else to their death to win the war).

Comment author: cody-bryce 03 August 2013 04:44:05PM 2 points [-]

I assume the original intent of the quote was about romantic partners, where it means, "Instead of searching so hard, make sure to prioritize being awesome for its own sake."

I was trying to repurpose it to express that action is better than preparing for something to fall into place more generally, and I think it's appealed to people.

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 05:38:30PM 2 points [-]

How isn't "looking for" or "searching hard" action?

Comment author: dspeyer 04 August 2013 09:12:08PM 3 points [-]

I originally read it as being about politics. We keep thinking that somewhere there's a candidate worth voting for, and then things will be ok, but instead we should be trying to become the worthy candidates, even if only for local office. Or perhaps toward improving the world generally. Instead of deciding whether to pay Yudkowsky or Bostrom to work on existential risk, we should try applying our own talents. Similar to "[T]he phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider 'and that someone is me'."

Skimming Gloria Steinem's biography, I am more confident in this reading.

Comment author: cody-bryce 02 August 2013 10:29:32PM 7 points [-]

Why spend a dollar on a bookmark? ... Why not use the dollar as a bookmark?

-Steven Spielberg

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 03 August 2013 02:11:31AM *  16 points [-]

Dollars are floppy. It's nice to have a relatively rigid bookmark. I've used tissues and such as bookmarks in the past but they're unsatisfactory. Of course, that was back when I still read books in dead tree format.

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 02:18:21AM *  7 points [-]

exposure to objects common to the domain of business (e.g., boardroom tables and briefcases) increased the cognitive accessibility of the construct of competition (Study 1), the likelihood that an ambiguous social interaction would be perceived as less cooperative (Study 2), and the amount of money that participants proposed to retain for themselves in the “Ultimatum Game” (Studies 3 and 4).

-Abstract, Material priming: The influence of mundane physical objects on situational construal and competitive behavioral choice (via Yvain)

Comment author: CronoDAS 03 August 2013 02:28:08AM 11 points [-]

My bookmark is prettier than the dollar.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 August 2013 02:55:37AM *  3 points [-]

Why spend a dollar on a bookmark? ... Why not use the dollar as a bookmark?

It will fall out. Apart from that, money isn't particularly clean and (especially if considering US currency) not particularly pretty either. I expect people to find a bookmark far more aesthetically pleasing than a note.

How is this a rationality quote? It is rationality-neutral at best.

Comment author: cody-bryce 04 August 2013 03:13:51AM 8 points [-]

"Because the dollar is dirty" is one of those pained, stretched explanations people come up with to explain why they do what they do, not the actual reason (even in some small part) the bookmark was invented and became popular.

Comment author: wedrifid 04 August 2013 04:30:43AM 0 points [-]

"Because the dollar is dirty" is one of those pained, stretched explanations people come up with to explain why they do what they do, not the actual reason (even in some small part) the bookmark was invented and became popular.

The question wasn't "Why was the bookmark invented?". If it was, I might have, for example, tried to determine the first time someone used a bookmark (or when it became popular). Then I could have told you precisely how many dollars in present value that dollar would have been worth. That is, moving the goalposts in this way has made your quote worse, not better.

not the actual reason (even in some small part)

Not even is some small part? That's absurd. Can you not empathise in even a small part with the aesthetic aversion many people have to contaminating things with used currency?

Comment author: James_K 03 August 2013 06:50:59AM 8 points [-]

My bookmark is made of two prices of fridge-magnet material. It can be closed around a few pages and the magnetism holds it in place, preventing it from falling out.

Plus dollars in my country are exclusively coins, the smallest note is $5.

Comment author: cody-bryce 03 August 2013 04:47:47PM 4 points [-]

It would seem that most of the responders are hopelessly literal....

Comment author: Jiro 03 August 2013 05:01:18PM *  6 points [-]

I find it hard to come up with a deeper meaning for the original statement, so yeah.

Besides, it's not hard to come up with a deeper meaning behind what the responders are saying; in pointing out that an object specifically designed as a bookmark makes a better bookmark than a dollar bill, they're making a statement about more than just dollar bills and bookmarks, but about specialization in general.

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 05:47:47PM *  4 points [-]

I find it hard to come up with a deeper meaning for the original statement

"We don't automatically reflect on most things we do, even when spending money. Even lifelong practices can be shown as absurd with a moment's consideration from the right angle. In fact, we're so irrational that we'll pay a dollar for a bookmark!"

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 04 August 2013 01:24:15AM 8 points [-]

A decision with an aesthetic benefit is not irrational. You are misusing "irrational".

(Or was this sarcasm?)

Comment author: MugaSofer 04 August 2013 02:47:34PM 0 points [-]

That's clearly the intent - except maybe for that last bit - but it's kinda a poor example, I have to admit.

Comment author: gothgirl420666 04 August 2013 10:43:34PM 3 points [-]

I don't see why everyone is disagreeing with you. I definitely notice that people have a tendency to buy things labeled for some sort of purpose, where if they thought for a few minutes they could find a way to fulfill that same purpose without spending money. Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.

Comment author: wedrifid 04 August 2013 08:57:29AM 2 points [-]

It would seem that most of the responders are hopelessly literal....

Your quote is both literally and connotatively poor. If Spielberg had asked "Why spend two dollars on a bookmark? ... Why not use a dollar as a bookmark?" then there would at least have been some moral along the lines of efficient practicality. Even then it would be borderline.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 August 2013 03:47:33PM 2 points [-]

It takes time and effort (admittedly not much of it, but usually even little of it makes a difference psychologically) to spend $1 on a bookmark. (I would have phrased it as “Why bother spending ...”.)

Comment author: MugaSofer 04 August 2013 03:48:14PM -1 points [-]

Why use a bookmark that's worth a whole dollar? I use scrap paper, or a sticky note if falling out is a risk (it almost always isn't.)

Comment author: [deleted] 04 August 2013 03:50:35PM 1 point [-]

I do neither. I use any piece of sufficiently stiff paper I happen to have around (bookmarks purchased by someone else, playing cards, used train tickets, whatever).

Comment author: gothgirl420666 04 August 2013 10:32:06PM 0 points [-]

Or just fold the corner of the page over.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 August 2013 03:51:30PM 12 points [-]

I'm reminded of a picture I saw on Facebook of a doorstop still in its original packaging used as a doorstop.

Comment author: cody-bryce 02 August 2013 10:30:27PM 26 points [-]

If Tetris has taught me anything it's that errors pile up and accomplishments disappear.

-Unknown

Comment author: CronoDAS 03 August 2013 01:48:52AM *  30 points [-]

It's ridiculous to think that video games influence children. After all, if Pac-Man had affected children born in the eighties, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, eating strange pills, and listening to repetitive electronic music.

-- Paraphrase of joke by Marcus Brigstocke

Comment author: DanArmak 03 August 2013 09:29:53AM 6 points [-]

We can reformulate Tetris as follows: challenges keep appearing (at a fixed rate), and must be solved at the same rate; we cannot let too many unsolved challenges pile up, or we will be overwhelmed and lose the game.

Comment author: Alejandro1 03 August 2013 01:34:22PM 21 points [-]

So Tetris is really an anti-procrastination learning tool? Hmmm, wonder why that doesn't sound right….

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 03 August 2013 06:37:44PM 6 points [-]

But the challenge rate is not fixed. It increases at higher levels. So the lesson seems rather hollow: At some point, if you are successful at solving challenges, the rate at which new ones appear becomes too high for you.

Comment author: DanArmak 03 August 2013 07:38:26PM 1 point [-]

It was either that or risk some people playing without stop until their bodies died in the real world.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 03 August 2013 08:53:56PM 2 points [-]

...thus becoming useful object lessons to the rest of the species, and reducing our average susceptibility to reward systems with low variability. Not quite seeing the problem here.

Comment author: FiftyTwo 04 August 2013 03:42:21PM 1 point [-]

And todays challenges can be used to remedy yesterdays failures.

Comment author: cody-bryce 02 August 2013 10:31:02PM 7 points [-]

There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, So just give me a happy middle And a very happy start.

-Shel Silverstein

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 02:22:15AM 0 points [-]

X will never reach [arbitrary standard], so let's not try to improve X.

Comment author: AndHisHorse 03 August 2013 02:28:25AM 5 points [-]

I think the point is not that endings are generally and extrinsically sad, but rather that by definition, an ending is a thing which is sad, if we take the existence of such a thing to be good. (The ending of a bad thing, for example, is an exception, though generally because it allows for the existence of good things). The response, then, would not to be to try to improve endings, but rather to try to do away with them (and, barring that, improve the extrinsic qualities of the non-ending parts).

Comment author: MixedNuts 04 August 2013 05:31:52PM 8 points [-]

But but peak/end rule!

Comment author: Glen 02 August 2013 10:52:18PM 4 points [-]

Everything can be reduced to an abstraction, a puzzle, and then solved

-Ledaal Kes (Exalted Aspect Book: Air)

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 02:23:57AM *  -2 points [-]

Are they a villain who "solves" people by removing them from their way?

(Alternative response: Does "everything" include the puzzle of identifying something that can't be reduced to a puzzle?)

Comment author: linkhyrule5 03 August 2013 02:59:52AM 2 points [-]

... You can remove people as problems without doing so euphemistically, i.e. killing them.

If you befriend them, for example.

And, well, yes. That does count as a puzzle.

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 03:56:45AM 0 points [-]

The statement just seems weird without any context, I guess. It certainly isn't narrow.

Would you trust an AI that was being friendly to you as an attempted "solution" to the "puzzle" you presented?

Comment author: linkhyrule5 03 August 2013 07:36:43AM 0 points [-]

Well, no, but I would never trust an AI if I couldn't prove (or nobody I trusted could prove) it was Friendly with respect to me, period.

... not that it would much matter, but..

Also, relevance? I'm not really understanding your point in general. Certainly, problems need to be solved, but I would hope that your morality is included as a constraint...

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 07:45:02AM *  0 points [-]

But not necessarily if you're a fictional character, hence my initial question. I think my point is that I'm not convinced the quote actually means anything, either in its original context or in its use here; it's sounding like "everything" just means "things for which the statement is true".

Comment author: linkhyrule5 03 August 2013 09:25:50PM 0 points [-]

Still don't understand. By definition, if something is hampering you, it presents a problem: sometimes the solution is "leave it alone, all possible 'solutions' are actually worse," but it's still something that bears thinking about.

It is somewhat tautological, I'll grant, but us poor imperfect humans occasionally find tautologies helpful.

Comment author: AndHisHorse 03 August 2013 03:01:01PM 1 point [-]

That depends, what sort of solution is it trying to find? If it's trying to maximize my happiness, that's all fine and dandy; if it's trying to minimize my capacity as an impediment to its acquisition of superior paperclip-maximizing hardware, I would object. Either way, I base my trust on the AI's goal, rather than its algorithms (assuming that the algorithms are effective at accomplishing that goal).

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 03 August 2013 05:09:14AM 9 points [-]

Nobody can believe nothing. When a man says he believes nothing, two things are true: first, that there is something in which he desperately, perhaps dearly, wishes not to believe; and second that there is some unspoken thing in which he secretly believes, perhaps even unknown to himself.

John C Wright

Comment author: katydee 03 August 2013 06:34:02AM *  9 points [-]

The tired and thirsty prospector threw himself down at the edge of the watering hole and started to drink. But then he looked around and saw skulls and bones everywhere. "Uh-oh," he thought. "This watering hole is reserved for skeletons."

Jack Handey

Comment author: Zando 03 August 2013 06:50:10AM *  57 points [-]

when trying to characterize human beings as computational systems, the difference between “person” and “person with pencil and paper” is vast.

Procrastination and The Extended Will 2009

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 03 August 2013 07:23:56AM 0 points [-]

Everybody hates the bust, but the real harm is done in the boom, with capital being diverted to things that don’t make sense, because the boom’s distortions make them seem to make sense.

Glenn Reynolds

Comment author: b1shop 04 August 2013 01:16:42AM 18 points [-]

I'm downvoting this quote. Read at a basic level, it supports a particular economic theory rather than a larger point of rationality.

For the record, the Austrian Business Cycle Theory is not generally accepted by mainstream economists. This isn't the place to discuss why, and it isn't the place to give ABCT the illusion of a "rational" stamp of approval.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 August 2013 10:17:11AM 1 point [-]

"[W]hen you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." -- Sherlock Holmes

Comment author: Benito 03 August 2013 12:11:16PM 6 points [-]

"When you have updated on the evidence, whatever is the most probable, however socially unnacceptable, must be believed."

Comment author: wedrifid 03 August 2013 04:16:23PM 10 points [-]

"[W]hen you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." -- Sherlock Holmes

Technically true. Some notable 'improbable' things that remain are the chance that you screwed up your thinking or measuring somewhere or that you are hallucinating. (I agree denotatively but are wary about the connotations.)

Comment author: Document 03 August 2013 05:42:00PM *  2 points [-]

Duplicate (although correctly attributed this time).

Comment author: Estarlio 03 August 2013 06:39:09PM 0 points [-]

I remember a response to this which goes something like - when you have eliminated the impossible, what remains may be more improbable than having made a mistake in one of your earlier impossibility proofs.

Comment author: arundelo 04 August 2013 04:27:41AM 1 point [-]
Comment author: BT_Uytya 03 August 2013 01:16:46PM *  1 point [-]

Sages and scientists heard those words, and fear seized them. However, they disbelieved the horrible prophecy, deeming the possibility of perdition too improbable. They lifted the starship from its bed, shattered it into pieces with platinum hammers, plunged the pieces into hard radiation, and thus the ship was turned into myriads of volatile atoms, which are always silent, for atoms have no history; they are identical, whatever origin they have, whether it be bright suns, dead planets or intelligent creatures, — virtuous or vile — for raw matter is same in the Cosmos, and it is other things you should be afraid of.

Still, even atoms were gathered, frozen into one clod and sent into distant sky. Only then were Enterites able to say "We are saved. Nothing threatens us now".

-- Stanislaw Lem, White Death

(as far as I know, this sweet short story never have been translated into English; I translated this passage myself from my Russian copy, so I will be glad if someone corrects my mistakes)

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 03 August 2013 08:54:44PM 5 points [-]

Not quite seeing the applicability as a rationality quote; but in "it's bed" you should drop the apostrophe.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 03 August 2013 01:39:05PM *  54 points [-]

The fear people have about the idea of adherence to protocol is rigidity. They imagine mindless automatons, heads down in a checklist, incapable of looking out their windshield and coping with the real world in front of them. But what you find, when a checklist is well made, is exactly the opposite. The checklist gets the dumb stuff out of the way, the routines your brain shouldn’t have to occupy itself with (Are the elevator controls set? Did the patient get her antibiotics on time? Did the managers sell all their shares? Is everyone on the same page here?), and lets it rise above to focus on the hard stuff (Where should we land?).

Here are the details of one of the sharpest checklists I’ve seen, a checklist for engine failure during flight in a single-engine Cessna airplane—the US Airways situation, only with a solo pilot. It is slimmed down to six key steps not to miss for restarting the engine, steps like making sure the fuel shutoff valve is in the OPEN position and putting the backup fuel pump switch ON. But step one on the list is the most fascinating. It is simply: FLY THE AIRPLANE. Because pilots sometimes become so desperate trying to restart their engine, so crushed by the cognitive overload of thinking through what could have gone wrong, they forget this most basic task. FLY THE AIRPLANE. This isn’t rigidity. This is making sure everyone has their best shot at survival.

-- Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 04 August 2013 05:43:25AM 15 points [-]

And anyone that’s been involved in philanthropy eventually comes to that point. When you try to help, you try to give things, you start to have the consequences. There’s an author Bob Lupton, who really nails it when he says that when he gave something the first time, there was gratitude; and when he gave something a second time to that same community, there was anticipation; the third time, there was expectation; the fourth time, there was entitlement; and the fifth time, there was dependency. That is what we’ve all experienced when we’ve wanted to do good. Something changes the more we just give hand-out after hand-out. Something that is designed to be a help actually causes harm.

Peter Greer

Comment author: MinibearRex 04 August 2013 06:07:56AM 42 points [-]

I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.

Calvin

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 August 2013 05:01:11PM 17 points [-]

This phrase was explicitly in my mind back when I was generalizing the "notice confusion" skill.

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:53:01PM 4 points [-]

When you were what?

Comment author: Benito 04 August 2013 05:58:14PM *  8 points [-]
Comment author: Eugine_Nier 04 August 2013 06:13:25AM 12 points [-]

So, in a business setting, you’ve got to provide value to your customers so that they pay for the goods and services that you’re providing. Philanthropy is unfortunate in that the people that your customer base is made of oftentimes are the people that are writing the checks to support you. The people that are writing the donation checks are what keep organizations in business oftentimes. The people that are receiving the services, then, are oftentimes not paying for the services, and therefore their voice is not heard. And so within the nonprofit space, we’ve created a system where he/she who tells the best story is the one that’s rewarded. There’s an incentive to push down the stories that are not of positive impact. There’s the incentive to pretend that there are no negative things that happen, there’s the incentive to make sure that our failures are never made public, and there’s the disconnected between who’s paying for the service and who’s receiving the services. When you disconnect those two aspects, you do not have accountability that acts in the best interest of the people who are receiving what we are all trying to do, which is just to help in places of great need.

Peter Greer

Comment author: bouilhet 04 August 2013 05:32:24PM 2 points [-]

Occam's razor is, of course, not an arbitrary rule nor one justified by its practical success. It simply says that unnecessary elements in a symbolism mean nothing.

Signs which serve one purpose are logically equivalent, signs which serve no purpose are logically meaningless.

  • Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 5.47321
Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:46:45PM 27 points [-]

Some say imprisoning three women in my home for a decade makes me a monster, I say it doesn’t, and of course the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Ariel Castro (according to The Onion)

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:48:35PM 7 points [-]

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

misattributed often to Plato

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:50:23PM 13 points [-]

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

Stephen Jay Gould

Comment author: wedrifid 04 August 2013 06:54:40PM 7 points [-]

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

A proactive interest in the latter would seem to lead to extensive instrumental interest in the former. Finding things (such as convolutions in brains or genes) that are indicative of potentially valuable talent is the kind of thing that helps make efficient use of it.

Comment author: Estarlio 04 August 2013 07:57:52PM 1 point [-]

That's a hard problem, with no reasonable way to measure it in in a large population in sight, or even direction of the relationship taken into account. Ideally you'd take a bunch of kids and look at their brains and then see how they grew up and see whether you could find anything that altered the distribution in similar cases - but ....

Well, you see the problem? It's a sort of twiddling your thumbs style studying, rather than addressing more immediate problems that might do something at a reasonable price/timeline.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 04 August 2013 08:07:01PM 15 points [-]

There are surprisingly few MRI machines or DNA sequencers in cotton fields and sweatshops. Paraphrasing the original quote from Stephen Jay Gould: The problem is not how good we are at detecting talent; it's where we even bother to look for it.

Comment author: gwern 04 August 2013 10:55:10PM 7 points [-]

There was only one Ramanujan; and we are all well-aware of Gould's views on intelligence here, I presume.

Comment author: William_Quixote 04 August 2013 11:11:45PM 8 points [-]

they are not well known to me

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:51:26PM 31 points [-]

When the axe came into the woods, many of the trees said, "At least the handle is one of us.

Turkish proverb

Comment author: gothgirl420666 04 August 2013 10:29:14PM *  8 points [-]

I like it when I hear philosophy in rap songs (or any kind of music, really) that I can actually fully agree with:

I never had belief in Christ, cus in the pictures he was white

Same color as the judge that gave my hood repeated life

Sentences for little shit, church I wasn't feeling it

Why the preacher tell us everything gon be alright?

Knew what it was for, still I felt that it was wrong

Till I heard Chef call himself God in the song

And it all made sense, cus you can't do shit

But look inside the mirror once it all goes wrong

You fix your own problems, tame your own conscience

All that holy water shit is nothing short of nonsense

Not denying Christ, I'm just denying niggas options

Cus prayer never moved my Grandmama out of Compton

I prayed for my cousin, but them niggas still shot him

Invest in a gun, cause them niggas still got them

And won't shit stop em from popping you in broad day

Hope that choir pew bulletproof or you gon' pay

-- Vince Staples, "Versace Rap"