ChristianKl comments on Open thread, Oct. 27 - Nov. 2, 2014 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: MrMind 27 October 2014 08:58AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 29 October 2014 04:48:50PM 5 points [-]

Calculating Bayes rule for everything can be quite weird for a lot of people. I remember a case where someone found it weird that another person asked on LW how to do a Bayesian calculation for the likelihood that a specific girl likes him.

Calculating probabilities for many everyday issues is hugely weird for many people. You might even have to take care to make it sound believable even if you do describe a real world character.

I remember an anecdote of a person doing an utility calculation that suggest having sex without a condom and being exposed to the chance of getting AIDS is quite okay.

Another of those things that CFAR preaches that can be seen as pretty weird is purposeful comfort zone extension. It's the kind of topic where you also have to worry about believability if you just tell real world stories.

Comment author: Lumifer 30 October 2014 03:45:16PM 2 points [-]

Calculating probabilities for many everyday issues is hugely weird for many people.

And rightly so. The great majority of people are badly calibrated, can't estimate priors properly, etc. If they tried to calculate probabilities for "many everyday issues" I would bet most of them would land straight in the valley of bad rationality.

Comment author: Azathoth123 02 November 2014 05:48:21AM 0 points [-]

Heck, many people here can't do it right. I'm in particular thinking of the recent thread about computing probability of UFOs or aliens.