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The_Jaded_One comments on How did my baby die and what is the probability that my next one will? - Less Wrong Discussion

22 Post author: deprimita_patro 19 January 2016 06:24AM

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Comment author: gjm 19 January 2016 03:37:32PM 4 points [-]

Yup, that sounds very plausible. Would your unwillingness to give a number be changed if your client said -- as I think the OP here would -- something like this? "I understand that any probability you give me may be wrong in ways it's prohibitively hard to prevent, and I promise that I am not looking for perfection or anything like it. I understand that providing a probability may mean extra work, and I am happy to pay for that extra work. And I assure you that my own understanding of probability is extremely good and I will not do silly things like assuming that if you say something's unlikely and it happens then you're incompetent."

Comment author: The_Jaded_One 19 January 2016 10:51:24PM *  3 points [-]

Third, my clients are human, and like all humans, are bad at probability. If I tell a client they have a 60% chance of winning and we lose, the client will be mad at me. That by itself is reason to give qualitative estimates, not quantitative ones.

This is a huge meta-level problem with trying to be rational as a human being, surrounded by other human beings who are not rational.

Organisations with access to quantitative information have every incentive to hide it from you because the average human is a f**king idiot who will make a total pig's breakfast of the decision theory and probability theory, and then try to use the legal system to punish the giver-of-information.