The fact that psychology can explain how the phrase “less wrong” can be misunderstood does not mean that the misunderstanding is the correct way to interpret that phrase when used by an online community that uses psychology, as well as probability theory, to inform the development of rationality. It does not make sense to interpret the title of our site with the very naivety that we seek to overcome.
It does not make sense to interpret the title of our site with the very naivety that we seek to overcome.
That’s what I’ve been saying, actually. Except that the naivety in question is the belief that brains do probability or utility, when it’s well established that humans can have both utility and disutility, that they’re not the same thing, and that human behavior about them is different. You know, all that loss/win framing stuff?
It’s not rational to expect human beings to treat “less wrong” as meaning the same thing (in behavioral terms) as “more right”. Avoiding wrongness has different emotional affect and different prioritization of behavior and thought than approaching rightness. Think “avoiding a predator” versus “hunting for food”.
The idea that we can simultaneously have approach and avoidance behaviors and they’re differently-motivating is backed by a (yes, peer-reviewed) concept called affective asynchrony. Strong negative or strong positive emotions can switch off the other system, but for the most part, they operate independently. And mistake-avoidance motivation reduces creativity, independence, risk-taking, etc.
Heck, I’d be willing to bet some actual cash money that a controlled experiment would show significant behavioral differences between people primed with the terms “less wrong” and “more right”, no matter how “rational” they rate themselves to be.
The fact that psychology can explain how the phrase “less wrong” can be misunderstood does not mean that the misunderstanding is the correct way to interpret that phrase when used by an online community that uses psychology, as well as probability theory, to inform the development of rationality. It does not make sense to interpret the title of our site with the very naivety that we seek to overcome.
That’s what I’ve been saying, actually. Except that the naivety in question is the belief that brains do probability or utility, when it’s well established that humans can have both utility and disutility, that they’re not the same thing, and that human behavior about them is different. You know, all that loss/win framing stuff?
It’s not rational to expect human beings to treat “less wrong” as meaning the same thing (in behavioral terms) as “more right”. Avoiding wrongness has different emotional affect and different prioritization of behavior and thought than approaching rightness. Think “avoiding a predator” versus “hunting for food”.
The idea that we can simultaneously have approach and avoidance behaviors and they’re differently-motivating is backed by a (yes, peer-reviewed) concept called affective asynchrony. Strong negative or strong positive emotions can switch off the other system, but for the most part, they operate independently. And mistake-avoidance motivation reduces creativity, independence, risk-taking, etc.
Heck, I’d be willing to bet some actual cash money that a controlled experiment would show significant behavioral differences between people primed with the terms “less wrong” and “more right”, no matter how “rational” they rate themselves to be.