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This actually gets even worse. Consider for example a hypothetical Bayesian version of Issac Newton, trying to estimate what exponent k the radius is raised to in F= GMm/R^k. There's an intuition that mathematically simple numbers should be more likely, such as say "2". A while ago jimrandomh and benelliiot discussed this with me. Ben suggested that in this sort of context you might just have a complicated distribution where part of the distribution arose from something continuous and the other part arose from discrete probabilities for simple numbers. This seems to do a decent job capturing our intuition but it seems to be very hard to actually use that sort of distribution.
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P(X = exact value) = 0: Is it really counterintuitive?
If Newton tried to derive his law purely from empirical measurements, then yes, he would never be exactly sure (ignoring general relativity for a moment) that the exponent is exactly 2. For all he would know, it could actually be 2.00000145...
But that would be like trying to derive the value of pi or the exponents in the Pythagorean theorem by measuring physical circles and triangles. If the law of gravity is derived from more general axioms, then its form can be computed exactly provided that these axioms are correct.
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LW systemic bias: US centrism
Your examples all come from the Discussion area. Are there examples in the Sequences or Promoted posts that you feel still suffer from this? Have you run in to issues with "main" posts where the authors reaction is anything other than "oh, thanks, let me fix that"?
I don't think policing the Discussion area is a worthwhile community goal.
I'll go ahead and just quote my original response to you:
People in the US use imperial measures as their native units. I doubt anyone on this site uses arshins and sazhens as their primary day-to-day measure of objects. Asking someone in the casual discussion area to translate out of their native units, for your convenience, when probably half of this site uses those units, is selfish.
If half the site were dominated by pre-revolution Russians I would (a) be very confused and (b) once I accepted that this wasn't a hoax, I'd use Google to learn the local vernacular rather than expecting them to cater to me.
I don't see discussion posts as being inherently of lesser value and lesser impact to readers than promoted posts. I judge posts based on their content and the points they bring up, not by their location on the site.
Of course you get to choose which beliefs go into your head to begin with. You can avoid contradictions by only putting in beliefs that are logically implied by ones you already have, for example.
If you only accept beliefs that are implied by your existing ones, you'll never believe anything new. And as such, you'll stop updating your beliefs.
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Polarized gamma rays and manifest infinity
galactic intellectual property law
Be precise. Do you mean galactic patent law, galactic copyright law, or galactic trademark law?
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People I showed lukeprog's original post to were universal in their reaction: "Wow, talk about neckbeardery".
You got multiple people to use that sentence? In fact, I will be nearly as impressed if multiple people independently used the word "neckbeardery".
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I said "to the effect of". I didn't mean literally the same wording.
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analysis of relationships - which, to me, have always been emotional, passionate moments - by talking like a machine about optimal universes and utilons.
If explicit analysis of relationships would completely ruin the joy they bring you, then it is rational not to analyze them. However, for most people who've embarked on such analysis programs, this does not seem to be the case. The more important something is to you, the more vital it is to optimize for its good characteristics.
I sympathize with your distaste for taking apart love to see what it's made from, but that's the same frame of mind that refuses to put a value on human life, and thus ends up wasting large amounts of it by making scope-insensitive decisions. Refusing to analyze love might similarly waste large amounts of potential future love.
to the author it only extends to the "us"-group and not to the "them"-group.
The PUA experimenters here have noted that modifications of the standard methods may be necessary to appeal to the "rationalist" crowd. But I feel confident that none of them would claim Evolutionary Psychology doesn't work on us. I think you see as a lack of empathy what Lukeprog sees as analyzing everyone equally--sort of the "don't anthropomorphize humans" approach.
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I sympathize with your distaste for taking apart love to see what it's made from
More like distaste for trying to reduce love to something it's not. You cannot reduce an abstract, complex facet of human experience to something simple and easily definable, otherwise you make yourself vulnerable to utopia plans that are doomed to fail.
People I showed lukeprog's original post to were universal in their reaction: "Wow, talk about neckbeardery".
As for PUA, I won't comment on that. If all you care about is one-night stands, then I guess you can be cynical about that. Actual love is a different matter entirely.
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[Conversation Log] Compartmentalization
whereupon if I'm playing WOW, I roleplay an elf. <...> If I'm on LessWrong, I roleplay a rationalist.
Or you can roleplay a rationalist elf in WoW. :)
A long time ago, back before I quit WoW, I roleplayed an atheist draenei who refused to believe in the night elf goddess Elune. The catch here is that we players know she actually exists in the setting, because Blizzard told us so, but the characters would have no way of verifying this since she never appeared in the world in person. From my character's point of view, the magical powers that priests of Elune attributed to their goddess were actually (unknown to them) given to them by other, non-personified sources of power followed by other priests in the setting.
I feel like independence really is just a definition, or at least something close to it. I guess P(A|B) = P(A|~B) might be better. Independence is just another way of saying that A is just as likely regardless of B.
P(A|B) = P(A|~B) is equivalent to the classic definition of independence, and intuitively it means that "whether B happens or not, it doesn't affect the likelihood of A happening".
I guess that since other basic probability concepts are defined in terms of set operations (union and intersection), and independence lacks a similar obvious explanation in terms of sets and measure, I wanted to find one.
This one isn't even a matter of neglecting to convert; it's a cultural divide - while I expect you knew what Matt meant, it's entirely possible he didn't know how to translate it for you. Presumably you don't round to the nearest 1.5875 millimeters. What do metric users round to when measuring lengths? Millimeters? Those are little - even littler than sixteenths of an inch! Do most metric rulers even mark them, or do they just mark halfway points between centimeter lines? I don't know.
What do metric users round to when measuring lengths? Millimeters?
Depends. In casual use, typically centimeters. But yes, as muflax said, metric rulers have individual millimeters marked, and typically they mark half-centimeters with slightly longer bars.
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Progress comes from the persons willing to be different and create a new approach to solving problems--or entire new industries. Conformity is the bane of the politically correct approach to "consensus." In a conformity environment the best one can hope for is a local optimum solution that will likely be outworn quickly as reality sets in.
The rush to premature consensus destroys the possibility of achieving a global optimum.
In Russia and China one can be shot for being different. In the west, one is merely ostracized and demonized.
I think you might need to update your beliefs about Russia. The ones you seem to have are stuck in the 1930s-1940s.