I understand the concern about unpacking bias, and read about a related experiment also by Kahneman (I think) who elicited a higher probability when he asked experts to estimate the likelihood a specific scenario (deflation of the rouble leads to a Soviet invasion of Germany and nuclear war) than a general scenario (nuclear war). So I would be cautious of handling an equation with multiple, obviously overlapping terms. I’ll update the original post when I’m back at a computer to include a health warning in the first paragraph.
I don’t think I fully understand the criticism of this piece though; are you saying the modelling approach is incoherent or simply cautioning people not to just plug it into the cryo-Drake equation without considering the unpacking bias?
I understand the concern about unpacking bias, and read about a related experiment also by Kahneman (I think) who elicited a higher probability when he asked experts to estimate the likelihood a specific scenario (deflation of the rouble leads to a Soviet invasion of Germany and nuclear war) than a general scenario (nuclear war). So I would be cautious of handling an equation with multiple, obviously overlapping terms. I’ll update the original post when I’m back at a computer to include a health warning in the first paragraph.
I don’t think I fully understand the criticism of this piece though; are you saying the modelling approach is incoherent or simply cautioning people not to just plug it into the cryo-Drake equation without considering the unpacking bias?
You might be thinking of an earlier discussion of this issue involving car failure diagnostics: http://lesswrong.com/lw/fz9/more_cryonics_probability_estimates/82oh?context=1#82oh