New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update) - Less Wrong Discussion

New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 07:13:43 +1100

Submitted by nerfhammer • 76 votes • 19 comments

Also conjunction fallacy has been expanded.

(update) background

I started dozens of the cognitive bias articles that are on wikipedia. That was a long time ago. It seems people like these things, so I started adding them again.

I wanted to write a compendium of biases in book form. I didn't know how to get a book published, though.

Anyway, enjoy.

19 comments

satt on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T23:56:10.740219+11:00

I wanted to write a compendium of biases in book form. I didn't know how to get a book published, though.

Silver lining: in the long run, there's a decent chance more people will read what you wrote on Wikipedia than if you put it in a book.

nerfhammer on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-11T06:47:52.007836+11:00

Vastly, vastly more likely.

Everyone once in awhile someone sends me a link to an article on wikipedia saying I would find it interesting... and as a matter of fact, I found it especially interesting: I wrote it!

Or, I added a quote to Daniel Kahneman's page that has since appeared in almost every bio of Kahneman that I've seen since. For example, David Brooks wrote a column on Kahneman a few months ago and used the same exact quote I added, so that's millions of people indirectly.

Boggles the mind, really.

Nisan on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T15:08:03.711934+11:00

Are you http://neurosail.com/? It looks awesome.

nerfhammer on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T16:23:10.581894+11:00

yup, that's mine too

tgb on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-11T01:27:45.977038+11:00

Unsolicited website advice: it changes backgrounds far too quickly for me to read and look at pictures comfortably. There should be some obvious way to get it to stop moving.

nerfhammer on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-11T06:41:42.534487+11:00

Criticism is totally fair. I was getting frustrated with it, so I decided to get something done quickly that I could replace later. So, there are flaws.

It's supposed to stop cycling if you mouseover it.

lukeprog on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T16:43:44.869126+11:00

Re: publishing.

Self-publishing is easy. As for publishing with a mainstream press, I recommend How to Sell, Then Write Your Nonfiction Book.

nerfhammer on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-11T06:51:32.061750+11:00

What if I want to write, then sell it? Something that might be achievable could be like what Skeptic's Dictionary or You Are Not So Smart did, they started out as websites that slowly filled out and were ultimately published as books.

(Why isn't there a Singularity Institute Press?)

lukeprog on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-11T07:22:22.729590+11:00

Something that might be achievable could be like what Skeptic's Dictionary or You Are Not So Smart did, they started out as websites that slowly filled out and were ultimately published as books.

True, that does work sometimes.

Why isn't there a Singularity Institute Press?

I haven't researched this, but I doubt it would be a profitable distraction from our core work.

Alex_Altair on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T09:51:57.718073+11:00

Could you give us some discussion as to how you found these? Did LWers write them?

nerfhammer on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T10:08:17.629665+11:00

I wrote all of them

RomeoStevens on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T12:56:55.435690+11:00

An upvote doesn't seem like nearly enough for this. A very sincere thanks for the hard work.

Alex_Altair on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T10:40:08.854445+11:00

Wow! Thanks for all your work!

Eliezer_Yudkowsky on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T11:28:32.233046+11:00

Holy shmorkies. Thanks and congratulations!

nerfhammer on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-11T06:53:50.733605+11:00

Glad you like it. There are zillions more where that came from

lukeprog on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-05-30T11:19:22.694395+10:00

Will you please link your LW profile to Neurosail? I keep forgetting the name of your site and there's no reason not to link to it.

cousin_it on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-10T21:46:21.483730+11:00

Thanks for the great work!

NancyLebovitz on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-08-18T01:41:51.738021+10:00

Simplification bias-- this one might be standard, but if so, I don't know a usual name for it.

It's mentioned in NLP that people tend to drop "frames"-- if something is said, people will react to it as though the speaker is endorsing it as true, even though the speaker might be mentioning it as something someone else said.

The link describes people treating a possibility as a certainty. One flavor of this is called catastrophizing, but I don't think that sort of simplification necessarily leads to anchoring on the worst possible outcome.

JohnWittle on New cognitive bias articles on wikipedia (update)

2012-03-15T05:55:04.454874+11:00

Slightly offtopic: reading through Naive Realism... How does one combat this bias? Or rather, how does one know when one has eliminated it?