I don’t know about that. That clearly depends on the situation—and while you probably have something in mind where this is true, I am not sure this is true in the general case. I am also not sure of how would you recognize this type of situation without going circular or starting to mumble about Scotsmen.
I mean about the whole group of things that any given person decides or would decide is “low probability”. I see plenty of “p=0″ cases being true, which is plenty to show that the group “p=0” as a whole is overconfident—I’m not trying to narrow it down to a group where they’re probably wrong, just overconfident.
What do you mean, can you give some examples? Normally, if people locked themselves in a box of their own making, they can learn that the box is not really there.
It’s not that they can’t learn that the box isn’t really there, it’s that even if they know it’s not there they don’t know how to climb out of it.
There are a lot of things I know I might be wrong about (and care about) that I don’t look into further. It’s not that I think it’s unlikely that there’s anything for me to find, but that it’s unlikely for me to find it in the next unit of effort. Even if someone is working with an obviously broken model with no attempts to better their model, it doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t seriously considered the possibility that they’re wrong. It might just mean that they don’t know in which direction to update and are stuck working with a shitty model.
Some things are like saying “check your shoelaces”. Others are like saying “check your shoelaces” to a kid too young to know how to tie his own shoes.
“Actually thinking it through” is all well and good, but it basically boils down to “don’t be stupid” and while that’s excellent advice, it’s not terribly specific.
Heh. Yes, it is difficult and I expect that just comes with the territory. And yes, it kinda sorta just boils down to “don’t be stupid”. The funny thing is that when dealing with people who know me (and therefore get the affection and intent behind it) “don’t be stupid” is often advice I give, and it gets the intended results. The specificity of “you’re doing something stupid right now” is often enough.
And “can you eat the loss?” is not helping much. For example, let’s say one option is me going to China and doing a start-up there. My “internal model” says this is a stupid idea and I will fail badly. But the “loss” is not becoming a multimillionaire—can I eat that? Well, on the one hand I can, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have a choice. On the other hand, would I be comfortable not becoming a multimillionaire? Um, let’s say I would much prefer to become one :-) So should I spend sleepless nights contemplating moving to China?
I’d much prefer to be a multimillionaire too, yet I’m comfortable with choosing not to pursue a startup in china because I am sufficiently confident that it is not the best thing for me to pursue right now—and I’m sufficiently confident that I wouldn’t change my mind if I looked into it a little further. It’s not that I don’t care about millions of dollars, its that when multiplied by the intuitive chance that thinking one step further will lead to me having it, it rounds down to an acceptable loss.
If, on the other hand, when you look at it you hear this little voice that says “Eek! Millions of dollars is a lot! How do I know that I shouldn’t be pursuing a china startup!?”, then yes, I’d say you should think about it (or how you make those kinds of decisions) until you’re comfortable eating that potential loss instead of living your life by pushing it away.
You say “don’t be stupid” as if it’s something that we’re beyond as a general rule. I see it as something that takes a whole lot of thought to figure out how not to be stupid this way. Once I started paying attention to these signs of incongruity, I started to recognizing it everywhere. Even in places that used to be or still are outside my “box”.
I mean about the whole group of things that any given person decides or would decide is “low probability”. I see plenty of “p=0″ cases being true, which is plenty to show that the group “p=0” as a whole is overconfident—I’m not trying to narrow it down to a group where they’re probably wrong, just overconfident.
It’s not that they can’t learn that the box isn’t really there, it’s that even if they know it’s not there they don’t know how to climb out of it.
There are a lot of things I know I might be wrong about (and care about) that I don’t look into further. It’s not that I think it’s unlikely that there’s anything for me to find, but that it’s unlikely for me to find it in the next unit of effort. Even if someone is working with an obviously broken model with no attempts to better their model, it doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t seriously considered the possibility that they’re wrong. It might just mean that they don’t know in which direction to update and are stuck working with a shitty model.
Some things are like saying “check your shoelaces”. Others are like saying “check your shoelaces” to a kid too young to know how to tie his own shoes.
Heh. Yes, it is difficult and I expect that just comes with the territory. And yes, it kinda sorta just boils down to “don’t be stupid”. The funny thing is that when dealing with people who know me (and therefore get the affection and intent behind it) “don’t be stupid” is often advice I give, and it gets the intended results. The specificity of “you’re doing something stupid right now” is often enough.
I’d much prefer to be a multimillionaire too, yet I’m comfortable with choosing not to pursue a startup in china because I am sufficiently confident that it is not the best thing for me to pursue right now—and I’m sufficiently confident that I wouldn’t change my mind if I looked into it a little further. It’s not that I don’t care about millions of dollars, its that when multiplied by the intuitive chance that thinking one step further will lead to me having it, it rounds down to an acceptable loss.
If, on the other hand, when you look at it you hear this little voice that says “Eek! Millions of dollars is a lot! How do I know that I shouldn’t be pursuing a china startup!?”, then yes, I’d say you should think about it (or how you make those kinds of decisions) until you’re comfortable eating that potential loss instead of living your life by pushing it away.
You say “don’t be stupid” as if it’s something that we’re beyond as a general rule. I see it as something that takes a whole lot of thought to figure out how not to be stupid this way. Once I started paying attention to these signs of incongruity, I started to recognizing it everywhere. Even in places that used to be or still are outside my “box”.