You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

kalium comments on Open thread for January 1-7, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: NancyLebovitz 01 January 2014 03:54PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (142)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: kalium 03 January 2014 08:47:15PM *  0 points [-]

But the "50% probability of Situation A (2% probability of FAI in 100 years) and 50% probability of Situation B (0% probability of FAI in 100 years)" is much more informative to the reader than "1% probability of FAI in 100 years." It exposes more about which parts of the estimate are pulled out of the writer's ass. If I know something the writer doesn't about any one of these component probabilities, I can update my own beliefs, or discuss the estimate, more usefully this way than if I'm just given a flat "1%."

Comment author: cousin_it 03 January 2014 09:02:34PM 0 points [-]

Anna and Steve had a nice post about that.