Vaniver comments on Marketing Rationality - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Viliam 18 November 2015 01:43PM

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Comment author: Vaniver 18 November 2015 10:23:52PM 1 point [-]

To me, it seems that CFAR was supposed to be working on this sort of stuff, and they have not accomplished all that much. So I think, in a way, we should be welcoming the fact that Gleb T./International Insights are now trying to fill this void.

This is not at all obvious to me. If someone tries something, and botches it, then when someone else goes to try that thing they may hear "wait, didn't that fail the last time around?"

Comment author: [deleted] 19 November 2015 09:31:41PM 3 points [-]

This is not at all obvious to me. If someone tries something, and botches it, then when someone else goes to try that thing they may hear "wait, didn't that fail the last time around?"

This seems like a full general counterargument against trying uncertain things...

Comment author: Vaniver 20 November 2015 04:27:26AM 1 point [-]

Agreed that it's a fully general counterargument. I endorse the underlying point, though, of "evaluate second order effects of success and failure as well as first order effects," and whether or not that point carries the day will depend on the numbers involved.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 19 November 2015 04:39:58AM 2 points [-]

I'd be curious to hear why you think Intentional Insights is botching it if you think that is the case - it's not clear from your comment.

However, I disagree with the premise that someone botching something means other people won't do it. If that was the case, then we would have never had airplanes, for example. People will be actually more likely to try it in order to do something better because they see something has been done before and know the kind of mistakes that were made.