Polling Thread

Gunnar_Zarncke

This is an experiment to use polls to tap into the crowd knowledge probably present on LW.

This is your chance to ask your multiple choice question you always wanted to throw in. Get qualified numeric feedback to your comments. Post fun polls.

There are some rules:

Each poll goes into its own top level comment and may be commented there.
You must at least vote all polls that were posted earlier than you own. This ensures participation in all polls and also limits the total number of polls. You may of course vote without posting a poll.
Your poll should include a 'don't know' option (to avoid conflict with 2). I don't know whether we need to add a troll catch option here but we will see.

If you don't know how to make a poll in a comment look at the Poll Markup Help.

This being an experiment I do not announce it to be regular. If it is successful I may. Or you may. In that case I recommend the following to make this potentially more usable:

Use "Polling Thread" in the title.
Copy the rules.
Add the tag "poll".
Link to this Thread or a previous Thread.
Create a top-level comment saying 'Discussion of this thread goes here; all other to-level comments should be polls or similar'
Add a second top-level comment with an initial poll to start participation.

EDIT: Added recommendations from KnaveOfAllTrades.

This is an experiment to use polls to tap into the crowd knowledge probably present on LW.

This is your chance to ask your multiple choice question you always wanted to throw in. Get qualified numeric feedback to your comments. Post fun polls.

There are some rules:

Each poll goes into its own top level comment and may be commented there.
You must at least vote all polls that were posted earlier than you own. This ensures participation in all polls and also limits the total number of polls. You may of course vote without posting a poll.
Your poll should include a 'don't know' option (to avoid conflict with 2). I don't know whether we need to add a troll catch option here but we will see.

If you don't know how to make a poll in a comment look at the Poll Markup Help.

This being an experiment I do not announce it to be regular. If it is successful I may. Or you may. In that case I recommend the following to make this potentially more usable:

Use "Polling Thread" in the title.
Copy the rules.
Add the tag "poll".
Link to this Thread or a previous Thread.
Create a top-level comment saying 'Discussion of this thread goes here; all other to-level comments should be polls or similar'
Add a second top-level comment with an initial poll to start participation.

EDIT: Added recommendations from KnaveOfAllTrades.

temporary success "will eventually lead to suboptimal outcomes". Beware of the Typical Mind fallacy.

Just to clarify, by "sub-optimal outcomes" I didn't mean that you'll end up unhappy in your romantic relationships (which I agree would be a case of typical mind fallacy). I was referring to sub-optimal outcomes in domains unrelated to sexual strategy.

Also to clarify, the "by chance" refers to the general case of theories which come up with techniques that sometimes work for reasons that may or may not be what the theory says, not to Red/Blue specifically.

To give a crude example, flashing a Rolex, keys to a Lamborghini, or talking about your private jet is an excellent signal to "induce attraction" from a very specific kind of females. If you're interested in this specific kind it's a good technique. If you're not, it's not.

If you mistakenly model all women as identical to this specific subset and behave accordingly, you'll create sub-optimal outcomes in a global sense. (For example: What does having this model mean for how you treat women colleagues, coworkers, or students? How you treat daughters?)...note that the Red I've experienced does advocate that its model is true in the general case, rather than for a specific subset (they even have a name for it - "AWALT - All Women Are Like That")

Of course, you could still argue that "optimal outcome" in this domain is specific to who you are...but typical mind fallacy doesn't matter with respect to terminal preferences and values. I don't want a society where people are treated that way, especially not from a young age.

But in general, stepping back from this issue specifically...I just think it's bad epistemic hygiene to judge models by the apparent usefulness of the techniques which they suggest, especially when the fact that the technique is effective was well known before the model was generated.

.I just think it's bad epistemic hygiene to judge models by the apparent usefulness of the techniques which they suggest

I disagree. I think that judging models by the success of their forecasts in empirical reality is precisely how they should be evaluated.

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