Good_Burning_Plastic comments on Rationality Quotes Thread December 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: elharo 02 December 2015 11:28AM

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Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 13 December 2015 06:54:48PM *  1 point [-]

The difference is, if they fail, you can always buy a new appliance.

For some underwhelming value of "always", and anyway appliances aren't all that engineering makes.

Off the top of my head, cases when "harms take longer to show up & disprove than benefits" outside medicine included leaded gasoline, chlorofluorocarbons, asbestos, cheap O-rings in space shuttles, the 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the use of two-digit year numbers...

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 13 December 2015 07:20:32PM 1 point [-]

cheap O-rings in space shuttles

Look at Feynman's analysis. I'd say this is a good example of disproportionate channeling of optimism.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 14 December 2015 03:16:38AM *  1 point [-]

Yes. My point was that disproportionate channeling of optimism isn't something specific to medicine (let alone to evidence-based medicine).

EDIT: Hmm, I guess I originally took "disproportionally" to mean "compared to how much other things channel optimism" whereas it'd make more sense to interpret it as "compared to how much medicine channels pessimism".