xamdam comments on The ethic of hand-washing and community epistemic practice - Less Wrong

44 Post author: AnnaSalamon 05 March 2009 04:28AM

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Comment author: xamdam 26 March 2010 10:33:33AM *  4 points [-]

A couple of things that I am aware of in a religious community context (orthodox judaism). Of course in this case they were 'adopted' due to religious duty, and followed with intermittent success, but still pretty good ideas, especially coming from a couple of millenia ago.

De-biasing decisionmaking in legal context. 1) bribes are forbidden 2) family relationship disqualify the court 2) family relationships disqualify the witnesses 3) someone who 'lacks compassion' is disqualified from judging capital cases, specifically someone who does not have children is disqualified from capital cases 4) people with criminal record are disqualified from being a witness 5) people who do not contribute to the world (incl. 'one who makes a living from gambling' (occasional gambling is ok) - so much for a lot of our finance industry) are disqualified

Avoiding information cascades, specifically peddling rumors is forbidden.