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.

Jiro comments on Communicating forecast uncertainty - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: VipulNaik 12 July 2014 09:30PM

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

Comments (6)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Jiro 13 July 2014 12:19:45AM 2 points [-]

The problem with climate change forecasting is that climate change is very convenient politically for some groups and it's difficult for a layman to tell how much the person making the forecast is biased by the fact that the forecast lets him tell people do something he really wants to tell them to do anyway. You can communicate uncertainties, but how do you communicate "I am not biased"? Especially considering that even people who are biased would want to communicate "I am not biased" and anything you could say is something they could also say?

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 15 July 2014 05:42:35PM 1 point [-]

ANY position on climate change is very convenient politically for some group, not just the position that climate change is real, and human-caused and we should do something about that.

Comment author: Jiro 15 July 2014 10:59:33PM 1 point [-]

Yes, but only one side can say "because climate change exists and is very important, you should do X".

The other side would have to say "because there is no climate change or it isn't very important, you shouldn't do X if you're doing it because of climate change". That's fundamentally less convenient politically because telling someone "you don't need to do X, at least not for this reason" is a much weaker sort of demand than "do X", even though in some sense both involve demanding that people do what you want.

Comment author: Agathodaimon 18 July 2014 07:49:20PM 0 points [-]

By being a loving person you can convey sincerity and that you are willing to submit your own interests to that of the greater whole.