Why, then, is it that people continue to mistrust algorithms, in spite of their superiority, and instead cling to human advice? A recent paper by Dietvorst, Simmons and Massey suggests it is due to a cognitive bias which they call algorithm aversion.
Why is it that opium puts people to sleep? A recent paper by Molière suggests it is due to a property which he calls its dormitive principle.
For some background on /u/RichardKennaway's point, see:
Business, and the many subfields thereof.
I've been hanging around LW for a number of years now, and only recently have begun learning anything about business. I've often been struck at how relevant much of what we cover is to "the art of human rationality." The following topics or oft-repeated themes are potential gold mines:
Business scholarly literature includes theoretical articles and case studies. The theoretical articles are often trivial or ill founded. But the case studies are very valuable for me--I naturally err on the side of excessive abstraction. Like fiction, case studies provide the reader with vicarious experience from which s/he can learn--but of course the events in the case study are real and nothing is obscured or exaggerated for the sake of entertainment.
A great strength of business literature is its clarity. Perhaps because the audience is assumed to be exceptionally impatient and busy, most articles are neatly paragraphed, feature helpful graphics, and have the business equivalent of "tl;dr" all over the place.
Another reason LWers might be interested in business is, of course, that business success leads to more wealth, which enables more philanthropy.
Edited: fixed a word and added a bullet
If you think that religious wars are real things, what do you think is the most clear example of one?
I think the following would all be examples of religious wars:
Of course politics has a role in all of these. Politics and religion intermingle all the time. So each of the above conflicts is political in some respects. But of course that doesn't make politics the "real" cause.
Of course religious conflict can be used, consciously or not, as a cover for political conflict. But the reverse is also possible. And while the distinction between religious and political motives may be clear at the individual level, the problem of composition arises when you think about the motives for an entire movement.
Perhaps a graphic representation of the various models would help. Imagine two groups of people in conflict. In the past, the Blues oppressed the Greens. Now the Greens and Blues are bitter enemies and occasionally break into open warfare. There's also a lot of religious hatred between the two groups that goes back a long way. Here are a couple ways this could work:
Scenario A: Religious differences --> Blues oppress Greens --> Greens resent Blues --> War
Scenario B: Blues want to oppress Greens --> Blues invent their religion to give themselves moral cover --> Blues oppress Greens --> Greens resent Blues --> War
In the real world, where there are other sources of conflict (like natural resources, race, foreign powers playing sides, etc.), it seems like a lot of information would be necessary before being confident that either scenario was the real one.
Behind every religious war is a political cause. That's what gives an organization like al-Qaeda its support and that's where new recruits come from. The modern jihad movement really got off the ground when the mujahideen fought the Soviets in Afghanistan (guess who provided money and training). Once you have a group that successfully uses the banner of radical Islam to fight off one foreign invader, it makes sense to use that same approach to tackle other problems--Israel and American influence. The event that sparked the enmity between al-Qaeda and the USA was actually the Persian Gulf War, when bin Laden objected to the presence of foreign troops in Saudi Arabia.
Sure, propaganda materials are going to paint the USA as a wretched hive of scum and villainy trying to turn the world into a giant cesspit of debauchery. It's the role of propaganda to rally your side and the easiest way to do that is to make the enemy out to be evil.
Asserting that al-Qaeda is motivated by hatred of freedom has a jingoistic tinge that tends to cloud deeper analysis. We can likewise paint Neo-Nazis as people motivated by hatred of Jews, but that draws a line in the sand and prevents one from seeking a better explanation for why people join hate groups. Delving into the root causes of another's actions paints a different picture from looking just at the superficial causes.
Behind every religious war is a political cause.
Which do you mean:
(a) Political factors are the the main cause of every religious war
(b) Political factors are factors in every religious war
If (a), could you substantiate this? It seems like a very strong claim.
Edited for formatting
Given the extremely negative reaction, I will delete this post tomorrow, unless someone offers a good reason not to.
It may serve as a helpful example to other users of what sorts of posts receive negative feedback.
Reread the quote. Erasmus isn't just talking about reading. There are multiple relations:
I agree with each of your bullet points, and they do help clarify the Erasmus quotation's relationship to rationality. Thanks.
Maybe I should have included the whole paragraph:
"And even when "truth" can be clearly defined, it is a concept to which natural selection is indifferent. To be sure, if an accurate portrayal of reality, to oneself or to others can help spread one's genes, then accuracy of perception or communication may evolve. And often this will be the case (when, say, you remember where food is stored, and share the data with offspring or siblings). But when accurate reporting and genetic interest do thus intersect, that's just a happy coincidence. Truth and honesty are never favored by natural selection in and of themselves. Natural selection neither "prefers" honesty nor "prefers" dishonesty. It just doesn't care."
He's talking about the "maps" that humans/animals may carry in their brains. These maps don't need to match the territory to be adaptive (I think your criticism of the quote hinges on how you would define "significantly"). But there's quite a bit of space where a "bad map" does not prevent adaptive behavior.
For example, some non-venomous snakes "copied" the color patterns of venomous snakes. It's still adaptive for animals to avoid all snakes with this coloring (just to be safe) without needing to know the truth about which snake is dangerous and which isn't. And natural selection is "rewarding" the non-venomous snake for lying about how dangerous it is.
This additional context does help; thanks.
It's still adaptive for animals to avoid all snakes with this coloring (just to be safe)
Yes, this could be adaptive, but not costless. An animal that avoids all snakes that look venomous misses out on some opportunities (e.g., foraging for food in a tree occupied by a harmless but dangerous-seeming snake). The opportunity cost, in reproductive terms, might be negligible, or it might matter, depending on the specifics. (Here I'm agreeing with you when you point to the importance of the term "significantly.")
Because the truth, even in small matters like snake coloration, can make a difference, the original quotation is an overstatement.
I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults.
Erasmus, Letter to an unidentified friend (1489)
What is the relationship to rationality? This seems simply to be a cheer for reading and a jeer for pretentious book-collecting.
It looks to me (admittedly mostly from the outside; I don't live in the US, though I travel there sometimes) much more as if the government has played up the risk of terrorism by organizations like al Qaida than as if it's trying to make it seem less threatening. (It seems like there's less of this under the present government than its predecessor, which cynically would make sense because there's some evidence that people's votes tend to shift "rightward" when they are afraid for their lives.)
Yes, you're right, they do seem to play this up. That's strong evidence against the conspiratorial explanation I mentioned.
people's votes tend to shift "rightward" when they are afraid for their lives
Yes, I think this is true. But I seem to remember (but cannot cite) that people also "rally around the flag" and support the leader more--even if the leader is not "right."
Moreover, the present government still has some additional political incentive to play up the risk of terrorism, especially if the administration can blame it on the previous one. "Al-Qaeda is really scary--man, our predecessors sure did let their guard down."
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I do not think that any of your examples, nor any example I have ever looked at, really fits Scenario A. Perhaps the Partition of India or Greece/Turkey.* Religion almost never creates differences. Sometimes religion unifies people. The Greens and Blues, unified by religion, are able to stop fighting each other and attack the Reds. Perhaps this describes your first three examples. Maybe you should call these "wars of religion," but they fit neither of your scenarios.
Scenario B is also rare. I would assign to it only the Thirty Years' War. People rarely need cover.
Ireland is a race conflict, between the natives and the Scottish settlers. I think that this is a typical example. The core is a race conflict, but the names of the parties are religions so that people can change sides, if only a way that half-breeds can signify their allegiance.
Everyone knows that Israel is a settler conflict. If you think it is religious conflict, what is the religion of the Palestinians? The PLO was originally Christian and atheist. It would be odd to call it a religious conflict when the religion of one side changes (even just that of their leaders).
Yes, it takes information to decide, but the quite consistent pattern is that when I obtain information, I downgrade the religious hypothesis. Having such a pattern, I should change my prior.
* The ethnic cleansing between Greece and Turkey is interesting because it was largely done on the basis of religion, but in the name of race. After the partition, the new countries emphasized racial identity and a single language, but before there wasn't much correlation between religion and, say, language.
True.
Good point.
OK, I have noticed the same thing. But that hardly means the political motive is the main cause of all ostensibly religious conflicts (which is the claim to which I was originally responding).
Other ways in which religion could play a causal role in war include:
What if the doctrine of a religion is itself explicitly encouraging of violent approaches to conflict resolution?
What if the version of history promulgated by a religious community, perhaps encoded in its sacred text, casts the community as victims of perpetually untrustworthy outsiders?
What if the doctrine of a religion states that unbelievers cannot be expected to cooperate in Prisoners' Dilemma-type situations?
If the Greens believed in a religion that featured the above characteristics (or some of them), surely that would be evidence in favor of the religious nature of the war?