= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Why does the Bayesian say that the probability of there being life on Mars is 0.5?
I think the Methuselah Foundation's credit card idea might also be a good way to receive donations without people actively donating money. Probably also buys more warm fuzzies per dollar, since you can feel good every time you use your credit card.
In response to
You Be the Jury: Survey on a Current Event
What is completely sad (besides this horrible murder case), is the inability of either website linked to present a coherent, rational argument. In fact, I haven't been able to find one website that reveals all facts and then explains them with their point of view in a rational (or even semi-rational) way.
I find this situation almost as depressing as the murder. I couldn't come to any conclusion based on the poor quality of reasoning used on most websites. Wikipedia, as usual, presents a decent collection of facts.
From the Wikipedia article I could only ascertain that Rudy Guede is very likely guilty. My probabilities for the other two being guilty are low (but have a lot of uncertainty), certainly not enough for me to feel that the verdict is correct.
In response to
Test Your Calibration!
Advice for future creators of tests: There are people who live outside the US. No one outside the US cares about the 3rd person to be the second dead uncle of the fourth president of the US.
For instance, a majority of tommccabe's quiz questions are highly US-specific.
The point here is that non-Americans will end up guessing almost all questions, making the whole exercise painful and useless.
In response to
Waterloo, ON, Canada Meetup: 6pm Sun Oct 18 '09!
(Final result: 6 people, counting myself & Vassar & Rune. Fun was had.)
Yes, lots of fun was had. Thanks to Michael Vassar and Eliezer Yudkowsky for making it a fun evening for all of us!
In response to
Waterloo, ON, Canada Meetup: 6pm Sun Oct 18 '09!
I'll just add my "yes", even though I suggested the meetup.
In response to
Scott Aaronson on Born Probabilities
WeiDai, good work on reading through Scott's PostBQP=PP paper and explaining the BQP_p contained in NP result so clearly.
I can't speak for Rune, but I think it's interesting because it's awfully specific. It's an example of the conjunction fallacy that someone thought this important enough to be a rule. To my common-law mind, it would be more sensible if it were something like "...even if it's to save her husband." And maybe it did mean that, since conjunctions are a common place for miscommunication.
Yeah, my interpretation was similar. It is far too specific to simply be used as an exhibit of sexist thinking.
LW/OB Rationality Quotes - August 2009
I always see that the monthly Rationality Quotes thread has this line: "Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB - if we do this, there should be a separate thread for it." This is the thread for those quotes.
This is a (possibly) monthly thread for posting any interesting rationality-related quotes you've seen on LW/OB.
- Please post all quotes separately (so that they can be voted up/down separately) unless they are strongly related/ordered.
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not post quotes that are NOT comments/posts on LW/OB - there is a separate thread for this.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
We don't. I'm not sure what's up with that, unless it was a deliberately bad example.
I can't imagine anyone assigning the event probability 0.5 just because it's a Yes/No question. Does the probability drop to 1/3 if I added 1 more option to the question?
The person who assigns probability 1/k to all outcomes of any question with k options is NOT a Bayesian. That's someone who has misunderstood Bayes rule and should re-read all of Eliezer's posts.