James_Miller comments on The Power of Noise - Less Wrong

28 Post author: jsteinhardt 16 June 2014 05:26PM

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Comment author: James_Miller 17 June 2014 05:33:42PM 7 points [-]

But I published my result in a prestigious journal in 1997 and told lots of high status people about it, and still no lotteries.

Comment author: roystgnr 18 June 2014 06:04:11PM 2 points [-]

Did you ever ask anyone in a position to use a lottery why they wouldn't? "People aren't trying my idea" is evidence that it's a bad idea, but weak evidence, preferably replaced by "People say they aren't trying my idea because X" or "People aren't trying my idea but can't articulate why not" when possible.

Comment author: James_Miller 18 June 2014 06:30:51PM 3 points [-]

I asked judge Richard Posner (one of my dissertation advisers) if he would be willing to use lotteries as a judge and he said no, it would get him impeached.

Comment author: Jiro 18 June 2014 07:51:50PM 2 points [-]

The legal system is based on the legal fiction that the judge can infallibly make a decision. If the judge makes a decision in a way which is guaranteed to be fallible in a certain percentage of cases, he violates this assumption, even if the guaranteed fallibility from randomness is less than his normal fallibility when not using randomness.

Comment author: Gust 03 December 2014 01:36:54AM 1 point [-]

Interesting idea. Brazilian law explicitly admits lottery as a form of settling, but I'm not sure if that example with a penalty for not winning a lawsuit would be admissible.