That depends on the situation and record, doesn't it? If 90% of changes that you have undergone in the past were negative, then wouldn't it be reasonable to resist change in the future? Obviously you shouldn't just outright refuse all change, but if you have a chance to slow it down long enough to better judge what the effects will be, isn't that good? I guess the real solution is to judge possible actions by analyzing the cost/benefit to the best of your ability in cases where this is practical.

(To make it clear: I have never seen the movie in question, so this is not a comment on the specifics of what happened) Just because it turned out poorly doesn't make it a bad rule. It could have had a 99% chance to work out great, but the killer is only seeing the 1% where it didn't. If you're killing people, then you can't really judge their rules, since it's basically a given that you're only going to talk to them when the rules fail. Everything is going to look like a bad rule if you only count the instances where it didn't work. Without knowing how many similar encounters the victim avoided with their rule, I don't see how you can make a strong case that it's a bad (or good) rule.

Are there any other systems for judging medicine that more accurately reflects reality? I know very little about medicine in general, but it would be interesting to hear about any alternate methods that get good results.

Why is it not ridiculous? From skimming the source, he seems to be using a long discredited biological idea and applying it to intelligence because there's a vague resemblance if you squint at it. There's no clear reason to believe that vitalism would be any more possible, let alone plausible, with regards to intelligence as opposed to organic compounds.

This is similar to how I've interpreted it. The character comes from a pre-enlightenment society, and is considered one of the greatest intelligence agents largely due to his ability to get results where nobody else can. He privately attributes this success to a rational mind and extensive [chess] skill that trains him to approach things as though they can be solved. While "stop and think about problems like they were games to be won instead of chores to be blamed on someone else" may seem obvious to people used to thinking like that, it's a major shift for most people.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/

This is the root level of the sequence, and it links to all of the posts I believe

The most interesting stories come from a power in Exalted called "Wise Choice". Basically, you give it a situation and a finite list of actions you could take and it tells you the one that will have the best outcome for you within the next month. It also requires a moderate expenditure of mana, so it can't be used over and over without cost. When I read what the charm did, I thought of Harry's time-experiment with prime numbers. It was immediately obvious that Wise Choice could factorize any number easily, although perhaps not cheaply if it has a large number of factors. From there, it also expanded to finding literally anything in the world either with one big question (if low on mana) or a quick series of smaller ones (if low on time) by dividing the world into a grid and either listing every square or doing a basic binary search via asking the power "Given that I'm going to keep divind the world in half and asking a similar question to this one, which half of the world should I focus on to get within 10 feet of Item/Person X's location at exactly 7PM tomorrow evening" I also figured out that you can beat the one month time limit by pre-committing to asking the same question in 27 days and having someone else promise to give you a reward if you state the same thing each month, with the caveat that you have to give it all back if you're proven wrong in the end or change your answer. This can be shown to work (assuming I haven't made a mistake) by taking a simple case of there being two boxes, one containing ten million dollars and the other being empty. By choosing a box now, it will be opened in six months and you will be given what is inside. Without the trick, Wise Choice looks forward one month, sees no difference and tells you "it doesn't matter". With the trick, Wise Choice looks forward a month, and tells you to say what it sees future you saying, even though it doesn't "understand" why. However, future you can see an additional month forward, and uses it to see future you+2, etc. Therefore, the first instance gives you the true box, even though it can't see to when the box opens.

Of course, it's possible that I've missed a possible case that makes those tricks invalid. I don't have access to an actual infinite-knowledge superpower to check my work, but I figure telling other people about it so they can see things I missed is almost as good.