Group Rationality Diary, April 5-14

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for April 5-14.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Rationality Diaries archive

Next post: 4/15-29

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for April 5-14.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Rationality Diaries archive

Next post: 4/15-29

To me there is a big difference between saying "X is an interesting hypothesis, let's check it experimentally" and saying "X is a deep wisdom, if you disagree, you are simply not wise enough". I generally don't get angry at people for suggesting a hypothesis, as long as they admit it is just a hypothesis. I get angry at people for presenting something as an absolute truth, if I later discover it was a bullshit.

In the first case, the meme "if you didn't do something, it only means it wasn't really important for you" was presented to me by multiple people as an absolute truth that only a person in deep denial could not accept as self-evident.

If someone presented the second case in the same way, insisting that they know with absolute certainty what even science does not know, I would be similarly outraged by their overconfidence.

So it seems it's not the ideas per se, but the extreme overconfidence (and suggesting that people who don't share this overconfidence are somehow inferior), which makes me angry. How am I supposed to update on information in an environment which communicates this way?

(With regards to gender differences in math genius frequency, it seems to me that there is a lot of overconfidence, but in the opposite direction. I mean, I personally don't know. As far as I know, there is no scientific research proving either way -- and if I am wrong about this, please send me a hyperlink and I will be happy to update. But some people already know, with 100% certainty, and are ready to judge those who disagree with their certainty as morally inferior.)

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by math geniuses -- do you just mean e.g. high-performing university level math students, or math professors doing groundbreaking research? I'm also not sure if the argument you're making is biological. I believe that, while there may be biological differences in the average mathematical aptitude between genders, the biological effects are negligible compared to the social aspects.

First of all, stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is the phenomenon that being reminded of a negative stereotype will inhibit your performance... (read more)

0Vaniver13y

Mmm. Agreed that the "only" in this sentence makes it unjustifiably strong, but I still think revealed preferences has a lot going for it, and the defenses I've seen of it is "this is the best of bad options" rather than "this is a good option."

1TheOtherDave13y

(nods) I suspect that many people consider the primary value of acquiring knowledge to be feeling certain and being able to judge people who disagree with their certainty as morally inferior.

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