I think they would sympathize with Haldane’s “queerer than we can suppose” line (quoted in BoI) and the principle of mediocrity (in BoI).
There’s something subtle but very wrong with their worldview that has to do with the difference between problem finding and problem solving. These people are not bubbling with solutions.
A lot of what they are doing is excusing faults. Explaining faults without blaming human choices. Taking away our responsibility and our ability to be responsible. They like to talk about humans being influenced—powerless and controlled—but small and subtle things. This connects with the dominant opinion on Less Wrong that morality does not exist.
They have low standards. They know their “science” is biased, but it’s good enough for them anyway. They don’t expect, and strive for, better. They think people are inherently parochial—including themselves, who they consider only a little less so—and they don’t mind.
Morality can’t exist without explanations, btw, and higher level concepts. Strong empiricism and instrumentalism—as dominate Less Wrong—destroy it pretty directly.
They would not like Ayn Rand. And they would not like Deutsch.
Together, we explored the psychology of intuitive beliefs and choices and examined their bounded rationality.
They take for granted rationality is bounded and then sought out ways to show it, e.g. by asking people to use their intuition and then comparing that intuition against math—a dirty trick, with a result easily predictable in advance, in line with the conclusion they assumed in advance. Rationality is bounded—they knew that since college merely by examining their own failings—and they’re just researching where the bounds are.
Why did the jump to universality occur in our Western society and not elsewhere? Deutsch rejects the explanations of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Jared Diamond that the dominance of the West is a consequence of geography and climate
That’s another aspect of it. It’s the same kind of thing. If you establish how biased we are, then our success or failure is dependent not on us—human ideas and human choices—but parochial details like our environment and whether it happens to be one our biases will thrive in or not.
Yes.
I think they would sympathize with Haldane’s “queerer than we can suppose” line (quoted in BoI) and the principle of mediocrity (in BoI).
There’s something subtle but very wrong with their worldview that has to do with the difference between problem finding and problem solving. These people are not bubbling with solutions.
A lot of what they are doing is excusing faults. Explaining faults without blaming human choices. Taking away our responsibility and our ability to be responsible. They like to talk about humans being influenced—powerless and controlled—but small and subtle things. This connects with the dominant opinion on Less Wrong that morality does not exist.
They have low standards. They know their “science” is biased, but it’s good enough for them anyway. They don’t expect, and strive for, better. They think people are inherently parochial—including themselves, who they consider only a little less so—and they don’t mind.
Morality can’t exist without explanations, btw, and higher level concepts. Strong empiricism and instrumentalism—as dominate Less Wrong—destroy it pretty directly.
They would not like Ayn Rand. And they would not like Deutsch.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2002/kahnemann-lecture.pdf
They take for granted rationality is bounded and then sought out ways to show it, e.g. by asking people to use their intuition and then comparing that intuition against math—a dirty trick, with a result easily predictable in advance, in line with the conclusion they assumed in advance. Rationality is bounded—they knew that since college merely by examining their own failings—and they’re just researching where the bounds are.
EDIT
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=415636
That’s another aspect of it. It’s the same kind of thing. If you establish how biased we are, then our success or failure is dependent not on us—human ideas and human choices—but parochial details like our environment and whether it happens to be one our biases will thrive in or not.