= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
fezziwig comments on Is my view contrarian? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (94)
I've not read all your references yet, so perhaps you can just give me a link: why is it useful to classify your beliefs as contrarian or not? If you already know that e.g. most philosophers of religion believe in God but most physicists do not, then it seems like you already know enough to start drawing useful conclusions about your own correctness.
In other words, I guess I don't see how the "contrarianism" concept, as you've defined it, helps you believe only true things. It seems...incidental.
One reason to classify beliefs as contrarian is that it helps you discuss them more effectively. My presentation of an idea that I expect will seem contrarian is going to look very different from my presentation of an idea that I expect will seem mainstream, and it's useful to know what will and won't be surprising or jarring to people.
This seems most relevant to stage 3-- if you hold what you believe to be a correct contrarian view (as opposed to a correct mainstream view), this has important ramifications as to how to proceed in conversation. Thus, knowing which of your views are contrarian has instrumental value.
I agree: see footnote 1.
The 'My Approach' summary was supposed to make clear that in the end it always comes down to a "model combination and adjustment" anyway, but maybe I didn't make that clear enough.
Mm, fair enough. Maybe I'm just getting distracted by the word "contrarian".
Would another reasonable title for this sequence be "How to Correctly Update on Expert Opinion", or would that miss some nuance?