Open thread, July 23-29, 2013

David_Gerard

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I think running this for a week worked quite well. Weekly, then? Someone has to remember each Monday.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I think running this for a week worked quite well. Weekly, then? Someone has to remember each Monday.

Can someone remind me of the formal name for these fallacies:

a) an event such as a death that happens near you is weighted more heavily than one that happens far away; even if far away there are many more deaths.

b) an event that happens to people more like you is weighted more heavily than one that happens to people less like you.

and in general any other fallacies that cause people to weight the deaths of unrelated people in their own country/culture more heavily than the deaths of people further removed from them. Thanks.

(a) sounds a bit like the Availability Heuristic

4ESRogs13y

For a) you might partly be thinking of scope insensitivity (wikipedia calls it scope neglect).

10A1987dM13y

How's that a fallacy? The utility function is not up for grabs. If I care more about people I know than about people I don't know, I may be evil/selfish/whatever, but I'm not (epistemically) wrong just because of that.

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