My sense was that we had almost nothing to do with the popularity. It didn’t get linked to from LW until like chapter 12 or so, if I remember correctly. I know a couple people here made image macros but Eliezer’s following isn’t nearly large enough to generate this kind of popularity by itself, right?
I was referred to initially to it by two people who are not LW readers.
The individual writing the blog may be suffering from a bit belief overkill (one of my favorite cognitive biases. Someone should do a top-level post about it at some point. Many different cognitive biases can be thought of in a belief overkill framework).
They’re related. Some argue that confirmation bias is an example of belief overkill. Belief overkill is basically the tendency for people to accept all arguments that support their opinion even if it is only in a peripheral fashion. Thus, for example, people who think that using fetal stem cells for medical purposes are moral are much more likely to think that stem cells will be really medically helpful than people who think that such use is bad. Essentially, people compile arguments for why X is Good/Bad rather than dividing questions properly. There are some posts that touch on this issue (such as those discussing why politics is a mind-killer) but I’m not aware of any post discussing this issue in detail (although given how extensive the archives are I estimate a high probability that I’ve simply missed the relevant ones).
Motivated cognition would also be a special case of belief overkill—it’s being too ready to develop and accept arguments what you want to believe. Belief overkill is the same process applied to arguments from both yourself and other people.
I was referred to initially to it by two people who are not LW readers.
The individual writing the blog may be suffering from a bit belief overkill (one of my favorite cognitive biases. Someone should do a top-level post about it at some point. Many different cognitive biases can be thought of in a belief overkill framework).
Is belief overkill different from confirmation bias (which is what comes up when I google)?
They’re related. Some argue that confirmation bias is an example of belief overkill. Belief overkill is basically the tendency for people to accept all arguments that support their opinion even if it is only in a peripheral fashion. Thus, for example, people who think that using fetal stem cells for medical purposes are moral are much more likely to think that stem cells will be really medically helpful than people who think that such use is bad. Essentially, people compile arguments for why X is Good/Bad rather than dividing questions properly. There are some posts that touch on this issue (such as those discussing why politics is a mind-killer) but I’m not aware of any post discussing this issue in detail (although given how extensive the archives are I estimate a high probability that I’ve simply missed the relevant ones).
Sounds a lot like the halo effect.
Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided is related to belief overkill, I’d say.
Motivated cognition would also be a special case of belief overkill—it’s being too ready to develop and accept arguments what you want to believe. Belief overkill is the same process applied to arguments from both yourself and other people.