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Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop - Less Wrong Discussion

37 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 31 January 2013 10:16AM

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Comment author: ModusPonies 31 January 2013 10:07:40PM 7 points [-]

Upvoted for writing this before reading the main post. Is that the sort of technique they taught you?

To repeat my request to Qiaochu: would you be willing to follow up in a year or two and tell us whether the effects lasted? If you commit now, and use Boomerang to remind yourself, I would be grateful.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 31 January 2013 10:58:48PM 5 points [-]

Upvoted for writing this before reading the main post. Is that the sort of technique they taught you?

It's related to a point that Julia made in her "Evaluating Advice" unit about contamination of evidence. The idea is to avoid anchoring people to a particular answer when you ask them questions. See also this xkcd comic.

Comment author: Error 05 February 2013 01:13:24PM 0 points [-]

Upvoted out of interest. I try to do this myself, but it never seems to work as well as I expect it should; without an anchor, people frequently just try to guess what I want to hear instead of outputting their own opinion.

Or at least I think they do. It is inherently difficult to verify that sort of thing.