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ChristianKl comments on Open Thread, September 23-29, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Do I have a bias or useful heuristic? If a signal is easy to fake, is it a bias to assume that it is disingenuous or is it an useful heuristic?
I read Robert Hanson's post about why there are so many charities specifically focusing on kids and he basically summed it up as signalling to seem kind, for potential mates, being a major factor. There were some good rebuttals in the comment sections but whether or not signalling is at play is not the point, I'm sure to a certain degree it is, how much? I don't know. The point is that I automatically dismiss the authenticity of a signal if the signal is difficult to authenticate. In this example it is possible for people to both, signal that they care about children for a potential mate, as well as actually really caring about children ( e.g. innate emotional response).
EDIT: Just to be clear, this is a question about signalling and how I strongly associate easy to fake signals with dishonest signalling, not about charities.
That's like asking whether someone is a freedom fighter or a terrorist.
Every heuristic involves a bias when you use it in some contexts.
Yes, but does it more often yield a satisfactory solution across many contexts if yes, then I'd label it a useful heuristic and if it is often wrong I would label it a bias.
You're not using your words as effectively as you could be. Heuristics are mental shortcuts, bias is a systematic deviation from rationality. A heuristic can't be a bias, and a bias can't be a heuristic. Heuristics can lead to bias. The utility of a certain heuristic might be evaluated based on an evaluation of how much computation using the heuristic saves versus how much bias using the heuristic will incur. Using a bad heuristic might cause an individual to become biased, but the heuristic itself is not a bias.