Doug_S. comments on Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased) - Less Wrong

33 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 September 2007 08:05PM

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Comment author: Robin_Hanson2 15 September 2007 08:25:36AM 4 points [-]

Eliezer, we are in essence talking about a value of info calculation. Yes, such a calculated info value rises with rare important things you might know if you had the info. But even so it is not guaranteed that info will be worth the cost. Similarly, it is not guaranteed that our choosing to avoid bias will be worth the costs.

It seems to me simpler to just say that given our purposes we judge better overcoming our biases to in fact be cost-effective on the topics we emphasize here. The strongest argument for that seems to me that we emphasize topics where our evolved judgments about when we can safely be biased are the least likely to be reliable guides to social, as opposed to personal, value.