Desrtopa comments on A Voting Puzzle, Some Political Science, and a Nerd Failure Mode - Less Wrong

88 Post author: ChrisHallquist 10 October 2013 02:10AM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 10 October 2013 06:16:29PM 2 points [-]

How do you tell that she "looks intelligent and rational?"

If you have some other information that already screens off the evidence from knowing that she's a religious conservative, it doesn't adjust your probability, but if you don't, then you adjust your probability estimate that she falls into the overlap of "intelligent" and "rational" downwards.

If you know a particular human is three feet tall, but do not have access to other personal information about them, then it's possible they're an adult, but your best guess should be that they're probably not.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 October 2013 06:21:04PM -1 points [-]

How do you tell that she "looks intelligent and rational?"

By talking to her.

you adjust your probability estimate that she falls into the overlap of "intelligent" and "rational" downwards.

Would the downgrade from 99.999999% to 99.999998% be satisfactory? :-)

Comment author: Desrtopa 10 October 2013 06:28:19PM 2 points [-]

Would the downgrade from 99.999999% to 99.999998% be satisfactory? :-)

Depends how much information you already have.

I would say it would be awfully hard to get enough information to raise the probability of someone having both high intelligence and high general rationality to 99.999999% in the first place without finding out whether the person was a religious conservative or not, so I would say "possibly, but not in realistic formulations."