Slider comments on The Rationality Wars - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Stefan_Schubert 27 February 2014 05:08PM

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Comment author: Slider 28 February 2014 06:07:19PM 1 point [-]

Voting isn't a form of predicting the winner, it's not about being on the side of the winner.

Comment author: Tedav 28 February 2014 07:32:36PM 1 point [-]

I didn't mean to imply I thought it was, though I see how that wasn't clear.

I didn't intend that last bracketed part to be an example, but rather a related phenomenon - it is interesting to me how asking a random sample of people who they voted for is a worse predictor than asking a random sample of people who they would predict got the most votes, and that this accuracy further improves when people are asked to stake money on their predictions.

I simply was pointing out that certain biases might be significantly more visible when there is no real incentive to be right.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 February 2014 08:31:00PM 0 points [-]

people who they voted for < who they predicted would win < bet on who would win, where '<' indicates predictive accuracy.

Because, the first is signaling about yourself and perhaps trying to sway others, the second is probably just swaying others, and the third is trying to make money.

It's a testament to a demented culture that people are lying about how they vote.

Comment author: Tedav 28 February 2014 09:18:07PM 0 points [-]

people who they voted for < who they predicted would win < bet on who would win, where '<' indicates predictive accuracy.

This is exactly what I was saying.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 February 2014 10:13:01PM 1 point [-]

Yes, I meant it as a paraphrase.

Comment author: VAuroch 01 March 2014 10:44:08AM -1 points [-]

More common than lying about how they vote is falsely believing that they voted other than they did.