Lumifer comments on Is Scott Alexander bad at math? - Less Wrong

31 Post author: JonahSinick 04 May 2015 05:11AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 06 May 2015 05:53:17PM *  -2 points [-]

I rediscovered logistic regression, collaborative filtering, and hierarchical modeling. I rediscovered cross validation and how it can be combined with stepwise regression to identify robustly generalizable patterns in data.

You rediscovered? You didn't know logistic regression existed? What exactly did you rediscover?

This led me to the discovery that principal component analysis greatly reduces concerns about multiple hypothesis testing

I suspect you're wrong about that. Rotating a matrix (which is what PCA does) doesn't actually reduce concerns about "hidden" degrees of freedom which you use up by trying multiple hypotheses. I actually think that the usefulness of PCA is often overstated -- all you're doing is selecting linear combinations with the highest variance which is not always the right thing to pay attention to.

All in all that just sounds like pretty standard statistics.

The trouble is that I can't credibly signal that this represents unusually high quality work

Well, yes, you can't. Speaking of "unusually high quality", your Github code contains things like

source("~/Desktop/speedDatingFinal/libraries.R")

which should be mildly embarassing. Along with values hardcoded as numbers in the body of the function, etc. I can read (and write) R code just fine -- what is it that you consider to be "unusually high quality"?

it's not clear to me that there's anything that I can say to change your mind.

I don't have much of a mind to change. I am doubtful of your assertions of great superiority, but that's a doubt, not a conviction that you're just an average math geek.

The question that you should ask yourself is: if you're so rational and intelligent, why aren't you more successful?

Yeah: if you're so smart how come you ain't rich? :-D

Why aren't I more successful than what?

the fact is that you're actually roughly 1 million times lower in intellectual caliber than the highest intellectual caliber people in the world.

Which metric are you using? IQ values are ranks and I just don't know what "1 million times lower in intellectual caliber" even means.

Returns to IQ and aesthetic discernment aren't linear in expectation, they're exponential.

Evidence, please. Not to mention that for particular parameters exponential can be pretty close to linear :-)

I could be talking to people who are thousands of times more sophisticated than you, and it would be much more interesting to me, and instead I'm talking to you becsuse I care about you.

I'm sorry, did I stumble into some Christian revival meeting? What is this shit about trying to guilt me into agreement because you sacrifice so much of your highly valuable utils and hedons only because you care?

I think your ego is in dire need of some deflation.

Comment author: JonahSinick 06 May 2015 06:02:24PM *  2 points [-]

which should be mildly embarassing. Along with values hardcoded as numbers in the body of the function, etc. I can read (and write) R code just fine -- what is it that you consider to be "unusually high quality"?

I was just learning R at the time and in a rush to get things to work. The code itself is not high quality.

What is this shit about trying to guilt me into agreement because you sacrifice so much of your highly valuable utils and hedons only because you care?

I see that you don't know what you're missing, I know it's because you didn't have the environmental advantages that I did, I know that I could have been in your position if not for the luck of the draw, and so I have pangs of sympathy for you, because your situation is in some sense very close to my own. It would make me feel so good if I could help you. That's why it's worth it to me in expectation, even if it's unpleasant in real time.

But you can't love someone who doesn't want you to love him/her. I spent ~15 years on that and it helped no one and came at great cost to my myself. So I'll withdraw from this conversation.