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gwern comments on Group rationality diary, 8/20/12 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: cata 21 August 2012 09:42AM

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Comment author: gwern 22 August 2012 02:34:14PM 1 point [-]

Well yeah, I'd expect half the fields to be doing worse than median. My point was that it was unlikely that all fields I look at are in decline.

I think you're tying yourself in circles. You can't argue 'every field I look at is not in decline' and then immediately turn around and admit that some fields are in decline. More generally, your median point applies to the self-assessments too: even if self-assessment is completely random and actual field performance is random too, you'd still expect a quarter to be - by sheer luck - above the median in actual performance and self-assessed performance. So if a full quarter are optimistic and outperforming, how did you miss them?

So if Korea makes it harder to enter the job market, that's bad for workers; and if Australia makes it easier to enter the job market, that's also bad for workers?

Sure. Someone drowning has too much water, and someone dying of thirst in the desert has too little water; is it really so absurd to say that 'some people need more water, and some people need less water'?

Comment author: MileyCyrus 22 August 2012 09:47:54PM 0 points [-]

You can't argue 'every field I look at is not in decline'

I never said that. I said the evidence was mixed.

More generally, your median point applies to the self-assessments too: even if self-assessment is completely random and actual field performance is random too, you'd still expect a quarter to be - by sheer luck - above the median in actual performance and self-assessed performance. So if a full quarter are optimistic and outperforming, how did you miss them?

By "self-assessment" you mean forum posts and personal blogs? Well that was exactly the point I made originally. It seems the is bias that causes that vast majority of self-assessment to pessimistic, even when field performance is good.

Someone drowning has too much water, and someone dying of thirst in the desert has too little water; is it really so absurd to say that 'some people need more water, and some people need less water'?

If I tell you "Sarah will get more water next year.", it would be absurd to tell me that that is a good thing or a bad thing, unless you have information about how much water Sarah already has. You can't say that Korea's stricter laws will be a bad thing, unless you have information suggesting Korea's. You can't say that Australia's more lenient laws will be a bad thing, unless you have information suggesting Australia's laws were already optimal or too lenient.

Now maybe you have this information about Korea, but I doubt you have it about Australia. And I doubt the that backpackers have this information either, considering that they don't even seem to know about new deregulation.

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