I estimate an 80% chance that the base rate for polyamorists, if known, would directly give rise to a probability of 50% or higher for the basic claim being true for three or more persons fairly closely associated with MIRI.
The vindictiveness on the linked page strongly suggests an insider; it is hard to imagine someone hating them that much, without at least having met them personally. Likewise, some of the expressions (such as “with the possible exception of one”) are more suggestive of someone’s actual belief, rather than a clever lie.
Overall estimating a 65% chance the webpage is basically correct in terms of the substance of the claims, although certainly false in terms of the black and white painting of the situation.
an 80% chance that the base rate for polyamorists [...] would directly give rise to a probability of 50% [...] three or more persons.
Let’s consider those numbers for a moment. I don’t know what counts as “fairly closely associated with MIRI” but let’s say there are 30 people who would count as being “fairly closely associated”. (AIUI that’s a lot more than, e.g., the number of people actually employed by MIRI.) If my calculations are right, this means that for Pr(true of at least 3) >= 0.5 we’d need to have Pr(true of any given person) >= 0.09ish.
The accusation, if my memory isn’t misleading me, is that MIRI is a hotbed of child rape. So, Unknowns, are you 80% confident that about 9% of polyamorists are serial child rapists? Really?
I would consider that description to be part of what I called the black and white painting of the situation.
The substance of the claim is sex with a person under the age of consent, which in California is 18. Yes, it seems quite likely to me that 9% of polyamorists have had sex with 17 year old persons who wanted it. Many people would think this should be quite legal.
I estimate an 80% chance that the base rate for polyamorists, if known, would directly give rise to a probability of 50% or higher for the basic claim being true for three or more persons fairly closely associated with MIRI.
The vindictiveness on the linked page strongly suggests an insider; it is hard to imagine someone hating them that much, without at least having met them personally. Likewise, some of the expressions (such as “with the possible exception of one”) are more suggestive of someone’s actual belief, rather than a clever lie.
Overall estimating a 65% chance the webpage is basically correct in terms of the substance of the claims, although certainly false in terms of the black and white painting of the situation.
Let’s consider those numbers for a moment. I don’t know what counts as “fairly closely associated with MIRI” but let’s say there are 30 people who would count as being “fairly closely associated”. (AIUI that’s a lot more than, e.g., the number of people actually employed by MIRI.) If my calculations are right, this means that for Pr(true of at least 3) >= 0.5 we’d need to have Pr(true of any given person) >= 0.09ish.
The accusation, if my memory isn’t misleading me, is that MIRI is a hotbed of child rape. So, Unknowns, are you 80% confident that about 9% of polyamorists are serial child rapists? Really?
I would consider that description to be part of what I called the black and white painting of the situation.
The substance of the claim is sex with a person under the age of consent, which in California is 18. Yes, it seems quite likely to me that 9% of polyamorists have had sex with 17 year old persons who wanted it. Many people would think this should be quite legal.
I agree with this and almost made a very similar comment, but decided talking about it would piss people off, which I didn’t feel like doing.
aaaand there’s the meta-contrarian motivated credulity about things that really, really should have triggered more skepticism.
It’s not.
This is of course what you would have to say either way, no?