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Romashka comments on Open thread, Feb. 23 - Mar. 1, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 23 February 2015 08:01AM

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Comment author: Romashka 01 March 2015 09:20:31PM 0 points [-]

BTW, there are different biases, and they might influence a person's thinking by different degrees. How sure are we that calibration using just one method will generally help? (I am asking this here because I have seen statements that 'calibration generalizes', but not looked for them, so if you can just throw me a link, I'd thank you.)

For example, yes, estimating probabilities as a habit should make one more wary, and applying rigorous Bayesian reasoning - more accurate, but it would all amount to a figure, a value for posterior probability, and we have seen from the Sequences that people just ignore them. They are given the numbers, and they still just don't apply them. Is it possible to calibrate with specific biases in mind, so that our pattern-matching abilities would actually help us later?

Like, the Affect Heuristic. Maybe to calibrate against it you should imagine yourself a newbie 'on the other side of things', the insurance company - public health lecturer - airport director (or whoever heads it), when you are presented with a choice that triggers an emotional response. Like, your choosing right now is not a heroic responsibility, but you still better get it right.

Congratulate yourself if you are right, fire otherwise. Make a joke about it, because you're going to fire yourself a lot. ?