I think the post is excellent, and I appreciated shminux’s sharing his mental walkthrough.
On that same front, I find the Never-Trust-A-[Fill-in-the-blank] idea just bad. The fact that someone’s wrong on something significant does not mean they are wrong on everything. This goes the other way; field experts often believe they have similar expertise on everything, and they don’t.
One quibble with the OP: I don’t think a computer can pass a Turing Test, and I don’t think it’s close. The main issues with some past tests are that some of the humans don’t try hard to be human; there should be a reward for a human who gets called a human in those tests.
Finally, I no longer understand the divide between Discuss and Main. If this isn’t Main-worthy, I don’t get it. If we’re making Main something different… what is it?
There is a reward for Most Human Human (and a book by that same title I cite from in the longer talk I gave linked at the top). The computers can pass sometimes, and the author makes basically the same argument as you do—the humans aren’t trying hard enough to steer the conversation to hard topics.
The fact that someone’s wrong on something significant does not mean they are wrong on everything. This goes the other way; field experts often believe they have similar expertise on everything, and they don’t.
Yes, but it’s almost certainly evidence that people on LW overweight relative to other evidence because atheism is an excessively salient feature of the local memeplex.
Interesting, I was under the impression that most people around here were fairly good about not doing this. However, it’s possible I haven’t been paying attention recently.
Ha!
I think the post is excellent, and I appreciated shminux’s sharing his mental walkthrough.
On that same front, I find the Never-Trust-A-[Fill-in-the-blank] idea just bad. The fact that someone’s wrong on something significant does not mean they are wrong on everything. This goes the other way; field experts often believe they have similar expertise on everything, and they don’t.
One quibble with the OP: I don’t think a computer can pass a Turing Test, and I don’t think it’s close. The main issues with some past tests are that some of the humans don’t try hard to be human; there should be a reward for a human who gets called a human in those tests.
Finally, I no longer understand the divide between Discuss and Main. If this isn’t Main-worthy, I don’t get it. If we’re making Main something different… what is it?
There is a reward for Most Human Human (and a book by that same title I cite from in the longer talk I gave linked at the top). The computers can pass sometimes, and the author makes basically the same argument as you do—the humans aren’t trying hard enough to steer the conversation to hard topics.
The difference between Discussion and Main is that Main is hard to find.
If it’s in Main and not Recently Promoted, I don’t know how you’re supposed to ever see it—is everybody else using RSS feeds or something?
I look at the sidebar on the right or visit http://lesswrong.com/r/all/recentposts/
Yeah, I use an RSS for Main.
It remains evidence, however; to ignore such is the fallacy of gray.
Yes, but it’s almost certainly evidence that people on LW overweight relative to other evidence because atheism is an excessively salient feature of the local memeplex.
Interesting, I was under the impression that most people around here were fairly good about not doing this. However, it’s possible I haven’t been paying attention recently.