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How would this encourage them to actually value logic and evidence instead of just appearing to do so?
People tend to conform to it's peers values.
Lets abstract about this:
There are 2 unfair coins. One has P(heads)=1/3 and the other P(heads)=2/3. I take one of them, flip twice and it turns heads twice. Now I believe that the coin chosen was the one with P(heads)=2/3. In fact there are 4/5 likelihood of being so. I also believe that flipping again will turn heads again, mostly because I think that I choose the 2/3 heads coin (p=8/15). I also admit the possibility of getting heads but being wrong about the chosen coin, but this is much less likely (p=1/15). So I bet on heads. So I flip it again and it turns heads. I was right. But it turns out that the coin was the other one, the one with P(heads)=1/3 (which I found after a few hundreds flips). Would you say I was right for the wrong reasons? Well I was certainly surprised to find out I had the wrong coin. Does this apply for the Gettier problem?
Lets go back to the original problem to see that this abstraction is similar. Smith believes "the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket". And he does that mostly because he thinks Jones will get it and has ten coins. But if he is reasonable, he will also admit the possibility of he getting the job and also having ten coins, although with lower probability.
My point here is: at which probability the Gettier problem arises? Would it arises if in the coin problem P(heads) was different?
Yep :). I was doing a more charitable reading than the article really deserves, to be honest. It carried over from the method of political debate I am attempting these days - accept the opponent's premises (e.g. far-right ideas that they proudly call "thoughtcrime"), then show how either a modus-tollens inference from them is instrumentally/ethically preferrable, or how they just have nothing to do with the opponent being an insufferable jerk.
The basic theme of the article is that you're only well-treated for what you bring to other people's lives. You're worthless otherwise.
This is a half-truth. What you bring to other people's lives matters. However, the reason I'm posting about this is that I believe framing the message that way is actively dangerous for depressed people. The thing is, if you don't believe you're worth something no matter what, you won't do the work of making your life better.
100% true. I often shudder when I think how miserable I could've got if I hadn't watched this at a low point in my life.
I think the only problem with the article is that it tries to otheroptimize. It seems to address a problem that the author had, as some people do. He seems to overestimate the usefulness of his advices though (he writes for anyone except if "your career is going great, you're thrilled with your life and you're happy with your relationships"). As mentioned by NancyLebovitz, the article is not for the clinical depressed, in fact it is only for a small (?) set of people who sits around all day whining, who thinks they deserve better for who they are, without actually trying to improve the situation.
That said, this over generalization is a problem that permeates most self help, and the article is not more guilty than the average.
Yep.
I'm rather curious how parents can "be" something to children without doing, since it's supposed children don't know their parents before their first contact (after birth, I mean).
I think I have heard of such studies, but the conclusion is different.
Who the parents are matter more than things like which school do the kids go, or in which neighborhood they live, etc.
But in my view, that's only because being something (let's say, a sportsman), will makes you do things that influence your kids to pursue a similar path
How do we know that designing a better intelligence is not an exponentially difficult task ?
Well, the answer could simply be, "you're right; we don't know that". However, I think there is evidence that an ultraintelligent machine could make itself very intelligent indeed.
The human mind, though better at reasoning than anything else that currently exists, still has a multitude of flaws. We can't symbolically reason at even a millionth the speed of a $15 cell phone (and even if we could, there are still unanswered questions about how to reason), and our intuition is loaded with biases. If you could eliminate all human flaws, you would end up with something more intelligent than the most intelligent human that has ever lived.
Also, I could be mistaken, but I think people who study rationality and mathematics (among other things?) tend to report increasing marginal utility: once they understand a concept, it becomes easier to understand other concepts. A machine capable of understanding trillions of concepts might be able to learn new ones very easily compared to a human.
If you could eliminate all human flaws, you would end up with something more intelligent than the most intelligent human that has ever lived
This seems true...but it doesn't argue against a bounded intelligence, just that the bound is very far.
"Bias" can include those flaws, especially how the word is used on this site
"Bias" has a strict definition. Not all errors are biases. One can clearly be wrong and rational, for example, by not gathering enough information (laziness, or lack of time...).
I realized that what bothers me is the neglect of utility-function differences in the counterfactual world.
Should you start using heroin? Let's try to reframe it in a way that will reduce, or at least switch around, the biases that might be influencing your decision. If you were a heroin addict, and had lost everything, and heroin were your only friend and consolation, would you want to stop? Maybe not. So go ahead, shoot up.
If, despite your deep desire to go into classical music as a career (which in real life you did, to your great satisfaction), you had followed the money into the financial sector, and after years of 80-hours weeks, had sunk into cynicism and no longer cared for anything but making more money to support your extravagant spending habits, would you then want to leave the financial industry for a life of music and a modest income? Probably not, so go ahead, follow the money, burn out your soul, and buy yourself a Porsche.
This method of reducing bias only works for rational decisions using your current utility. Otherwise you will be prone to circular decisions like those you describe (decisions that feed themselves).
I would like to upvote the Stephenson quote, and not the Feynman quote.
I would like to upvote the Feynman quote. I am not interested in upvoting the Stephenson quote.
I would like to upvote the Stephenson quote, and not the Feynman quote.
You two talk between yourselves so that only one of you upvote the entire comment.
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I suspect that the True Prisoner's Dilemma played itself out in the Portugese and Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica. Some natives were said to ask, "Do they eat gold?" They couldn't comprehend why someone would want a shiny decorative material so badly, they'd kill for it. The Spanish were Shiny Decorative Material maximizers.
That's a really insightful comment!
But I should correct you, that you are only talking about the Spanish conquest, not the Portuguese, since 1) Mesoamerica was not conquered by the Portuguese; 2) Portuguese possessions in America (AKA Brazil) had very little gold and silver, which was only discovered much later, when it was already in Portuguese domain.