James_Miller comments on Rationality Quotes September 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: jaime2000 03 September 2014 09:36PM

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Comment author: James_Miller 07 September 2014 02:37:41PM *  6 points [-]

A lot of people believe fruit juices to be healthy. They must be… because they come from fruit, right? But a lot of the fruit juice you find in the supermarket isn’t really fruit juice. Sometimes there isn’t even any actual fruit in there, just chemicals that taste like fruit. What you’re drinking is basically just fruit-flavored sugar water. That being said, even if you’re drinking 100% quality fruit juice, it is still a bad idea. Fruit juice is like fruit, except with all the good stuff (like the fiber) taken out… the main thing left of the actual fruit is the sugar. If you didn’t know, fruit juice actually contains a similar amount of sugar as a sugar-sweetened beverage

Kris Gunnars, Business Insider

Comment author: [deleted] 07 September 2014 08:10:50PM *  8 points [-]

Mostly correct, but only very loosely related to rationality.

all the good stuff (like the fiber) taken out

Vitamins also are good stuff but they aren't taken out (or when they are they usually are put back in, AFAIK).

Comment author: James_Miller 07 September 2014 10:25:17PM -1 points [-]

but only very loosely related to rationality

Rationality involves having accurate beliefs. If lots of people share a mistaken belief that causes them to take harmful actions then pointing out this mistake is rationality-enhancing.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 September 2014 08:09:03AM 7 points [-]

pointing out this mistake is rationality-enhancing

The way giving someone a fish is fishing skill-enhancing, I'd guess...

Well, not quite. This particular mistake has a general lesson of ‘what you know about what foods are healthy may be wrong’ and an even more general one ‘beware the affect heuristic’, but there probably are more effective ways to teach the latter.

Comment author: James_Miller 08 September 2014 12:49:30PM *  -1 points [-]

has a general lesson of

But the quote isn't attempting to teach a general lesson, it's attempting to improve one particular part of peoples' mental maps. If lots of people have an error in their map, and this error causes many of them to make a bad decision, then pointing out this error is rationality-enhancing.

Comment author: VAuroch 22 September 2014 08:05:01AM 0 points [-]

If lots of people have an error in their map, and this error causes many of them to make a bad decision, then pointing out this error is rationality-enhancing.

No, that makes it a useful factoid. I don't consider my personal rationality enhanced whenever I learn a new fact, even if it is useful, unless it will reliably improve my ability to distinguish true beliefs from false ones in the future.

Comment author: Jiro 08 September 2014 07:22:21PM 4 points [-]

A search brings up http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=101.30 .

This seems to contradict the claim that "Sometimes there isn’t even any actual fruit in there, just chemicals that taste like fruit," since it would have to say "contains less than 1% juice" or not be described as juice at all.

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