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rwallace comments on Draft: Reasons to Use Informal Probabilities - Less Wrong Discussion
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Aside from the other problems that have been pointed out, I will also take exception to calling an order of magnitude a rough estimate. An order of magnitude would be a rough estimate where you have actual numeric data to work with. In cases where you have to just make up the numbers, an order of magnitude is high precision -- in some of these cases, extraordinarily high precision, far greater than you have any reason for claiming.
I'd say "an order of magnitude is a rough estimate" is a rough estimate. Remember, this is epistemic probability, so whether you
just think 76297 looks prime-ish and guess 9/10
mentally estimate the natural logarithm, quickly check whether 76297 is divisible by 2 or 3, and call it a 1/2 chance
can actually compute the Sieve of Eratosthenes with five nines of accuracy for it in ten seconds and call it a 1/10000 chance
You're correct, as long as you're not mis-reading your own degree of belief. To get into confidence about your degree of belief, I think we'd have to get into something like informal Dempster-Schafer theory--which, incidentally, I'd love to do.