emr — LessWrong

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emr — LessWrong

Replying toIn Defense of the Fundamental Attribution Error

In Defense of the Fundamental Attribution Error

Good points. This may be another case where we evolved to have probability-weighted-by-utility intuitions, and where we work backwards from these intuitions when ask for a model of raw probability.

Replying toOpen Thread, Apr. 27 - May 3, 2015

emr11y

Open Thread, Apr. 27 - May 3, 2015

Can we finance cryogenics by revival awards?

Create a market for frozen humans. The reward is for the agent who performs the revival. Investors can either search for revival technology and patent it, or they can invest in frozen humans, which they can sell to agents who wish to attempt revival.

Replying toOpen Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015

emr11y

Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015

Maybe the head is the most vulnerable region to injury, and the locating of the self in the head reflects the need to protect the brain and other inputs (mouth, eyes, ears).

Replying toLessWrong experience on Alcohol

emr11y

LessWrong experience on Alcohol

I hypothesise a lower proportion of drinkers than the rest of the population. (subject of course to cultural norms where you come from)

Curiously, high SES in the United States is correlated with more frequent alcohol consumption.

Replying toSSC discussion: growth mindset

emr11y

SSC discussion: growth mindset

The discussion itself is a good case study in complex communication. Look at the levels of indirection:

A: What is true about growth, effort, ability, etc?
B: What do people believe about A?
C: What is true about people who hold the different beliefs in B?
D: What does Dweck believe about C (and/or interventions to change B)?
E: What does Scott believe about C (by way of discussing D, and also C, and B, and A)?

Yikes! Naturally, it's hard to keep these separate. From what I can tell, the conversation is mostly derailing because people didn't understand the differences between levels at all, or because they aren't taking pains to clarify what level they are... (read more)

Replying toOpen Thread, Apr. 13 - Apr. 19, 2015

emr11y

Open Thread, Apr. 13 - Apr. 19, 2015

(Not the OP, but musing on part of this)

I've never been in therapy, but I find it almost impossible to map certain psychological concepts and questions to coherent internal things. It's like when someone describes political liberalism as "the belief that government should be bigger": It's not total nonsense, but it doesn't connect with solid, and it's probably a sign of confusion if you feel that you can give a categorical answer.

Or another way: Trying to apply these concepts to myself feels like asking if some Canadian guy more culturally Japanese or Spanish (extroversion/introversion, high/low self-esteem, inner/outer locus of control, masculine/feminine). I can see that certain percentage of the world population is really clearly Japanese or Spanish, but what's the meaning of saying this Canadian guy is more Japanese, or even that he's more Japanese in contexts X, Y, and Z, and more Spanish in environments P, Q, and R?

Replying toWhat are "the really good ideas" that Peter Thiel says are too dangerous to mention?

emr11y

What are "the really good ideas" that Peter Thiel says are too dangerous to mention?

Well put.

Furthermore, is there any great mystery about the possible scope of these hidden opinions? I suspect (though how can I verify?) that most of these "too controversial to mention" opinions can be enumerated by simple inversion of common beliefs.

Blue is right -> Blue is wrong Green is good -> Green is bad

If we're talking about things you can't say because of moral outrage, then there aren't that many beliefs that are common enough to provoke widespread outrage by publicly challenging them. Maybe you can't guess exactly why Blue is Actually Bad, but you know the general forms of how it could be so.

Certainly there are other, more exotic things you shouldn't say in public ("How to build a super laser weapon from pocket change", etc), but I doubt this problem is the driving force here.

Replying toOpen thread, Apr. 01 - Apr. 05, 2015

emr11y

Open thread, Apr. 01 - Apr. 05, 2015

Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.

-- Oliver W. Holmes

Replying toPolitical topics attract participants inclined to use the norms of mainstream political debate, risking a tipping point to lower quality discussion

emr11y

Political topics attract participants inclined to use the norms of mainstream political debate, risking a tipping point to lower quality discussion

I agree that this isn't happening to LW. (To avoid repetition, I talk about a bit more about motivation in this comment)

Replying toPolitical topics attract participants inclined to use the norms of mainstream political debate, risking a tipping point to lower quality discussion

emr11y

Political topics attract participants inclined to use the norms of mainstream political debate, risking a tipping point to lower quality discussion

I'm a bit curious what prompted you to post this?

Well, I think it's true, interesting, and useful :)

The argument is a specific case of a more general form (explaining changing group dynamics by selection into the group, driven by the norms of the group, but without the norms necessarily causing a direct change to any individual's behavior) which I think is a powerful pattern to understand. But like a lot of social dynamics, explicitly pointing it out can be tricky, because it can make the speaker seem snooty or Machiavellian or tactless, and because it can insult large classes of people, possibly including current group members. I felt that LW is... (read more)

Political topics attract participants inclined to use the norms of mainstream political debate, risking a tipping point to lower quality discussion

emr

11y

(I hope that is the least click-baity title ever.)

Political topics elicit lower quality participation, holding the set of participants fixed. This is the thesis of "politics is the mind-killer".

Here's a separate effect: Political topics attract mind-killed participants. This can happen even when the initial participants are not mind-killed by the topic.

Since outreach is important, this could be a good thing. Raise the sanity water line! But the sea of people eager to enter political discussions is vast, and the epistemic problems can run deep. Of course not everyone needs to come perfectly prealigned with community norms, but any community will be limited in how robustly it can handle an influx of participants... (read 297 more words →)

An example and discussion of extension neglect

emr

11y

I recently used an automatic tracker to learn how I was spending my time online. I learned that my perceptions were systemically biased: I spend less time than I thought on purely non-productive sites, and far more time on sites that are quasi-productive.

For example, I felt that I was spending too much time reading the news, but I learned that I spend hardly time doing so. I didn't feel that I was spending much time reading Hacker News, but I was spending a huge amount of time there!

Is this a specific case of a more general error?

A general framing: "Paying too much attention to the grouping whose items have the... (read 210 more words →)