Vaniver comments on Why We Can’t Take Expected Value Estimates Literally (Even When They’re Unbiased)

[Vaniver]

This isn’t heuristic, this is simply the nature of the game.

This looks a lot like a heuristic to me. Is “heuristic” derogative around here?

Imagine Christianity approved of moving piles of sand with tweezers

Why not go with the real-world version? (Especially since it involves ritual destruction of those piles of sand.)

[gwern]

This looks a lot like a heuristic to me. Is “heuristic” derogative around here?

Yes; heuristics allow errors and are suboptimal in many respects. (That’s why they are a ‘heuristic’ and not ‘the optimal algorithm’ or ‘the right answer’ or other such phrases.)

I don’t cite the sand mandalas both because they simply didn’t come to mind, and they’re quite beautiful.