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brazil84 comments on Rationality Quotes April 2014 - LessWrong
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Even putting aside the fact that the vast majority of litigation is resolved before trial, there is also the fact that excellent lawyers lose cases all the time due to a lot of extraneous factors. By analogy, if the auto mechanic charged you $500 to change your brakes, and after he was done with the car the brakes still didn't work, you could be pretty confident that you have a lousy auto mechanic.
Do you agree that in litigation there is a much more of a problem of extraneous factors making it difficult to assess the lawyer than extraneous factors in auto repair making it difficult to assess the mechanic?
Do you agree that with plumbers and auto mechanics it is a lot easier to assess how good they are compared to lawyers since if they do their job properly, the problem they are working on will normally be solved and if they do not do their job properly, the problem will normally not be solved?
Do you agree there are also problems with doctors spending energy on signalling, (although perhaps not as bad as with lawyers), for example, caring about where a doctor went to medical school; prestigious internships; and spending money on impressive facilities?
These are real questions, not rhetorical questions; they are aimed to get a better grip on where we agree. Please actually answer them as opposed to just answering the argument you imagine is behind them.
What if the brakes now work, but not necessarily quite as well as they did before? If an auto mechanic tells you your car is totaled, how do you know he's correct?
That depends on the details of the problem. In a sense the same is true for lawyers. I agree that there are quantitative differences about exactly how likely you are to get a good estimate with what amount of certainty between these examples but I don't think it's large enough to make a qualitative difference in the analysis.
Those are interesting questions, but unfortunately you have basically ignored two of the three questions I asked you. As mentioned above,these were real questions aimed at getting a better grip on where we agree. It's difficult enough to discuss these kinds of things without having the other person dance around the issues. I don't engage with people who do this . . . .goodbye.
I figured the answers to those were easy to extrapolate from what I wrote, in any case here they are.
I agree that this is more of a problem for lawyers, although I'm not sure how much more.
It is, but I've never heard anyone say that there is no point going to anything besides the top tier medical schools.