Epistemic status: fairly confident based on my accumulated experience of debates and disagreements. I wrote this for myself as much as others.

There is a conversational dynamic which I think is extremely common, a failure mode which is all too easy to fall into. Alice and Bob are debating some course of action, e.g. should they do X or Y? Alice thinks that X is very likely to result in terrible consequence R, so they should definitely opt for Y. Bob thinks that Y most definitely will cause horrific result H, so they should definitely do X.

The distilled conversation goes a bit like this:

Alice: “We can’t do X! That would lead to R, which is unacceptable.”

Bob: “I don’t think you get it, Y results in H. You

Cross-posted from Putanumonit where the images show up way bigger. I don't know how to make them bigger on LW.

Basketballism

Imagine that tomorrow everyone on the planet forgets the concept of training basketball skills.

The next day everyone is as good at basketball as they were the previous day, but this talent is assumed to be fixed. No one expects their performance to change over time. No one teaches basketball, although many people continue to play the game for fun.

Snapshots of a Steph Curry jump shot. Image credit: ESPN.

Geneticists explain that some people are born with better hand-eye coordination and are thus able to shoot a basketball accurately. Economists explain that highly-paid NBA players have a stronger incentive to hit shots, which explains their improved performance. Psychologists note that...