Tom Myers,
Systematic but unexplained: sure, most errors are probably due to heuristics, but I’m not sure that’s a useful statement. A number of posts here have been so specific, they don’t seem like useful starting points for searching for heuristics.
Cost:
Most people don’t seem to have sufficiently clear goals to make sense of whether something benefits or costs them, let alone balancing the two.
People live normal lives by not thinking too much about things, so it shouldn’t be so surprising that they don’t think in psych experiments in which it is often clear that analysis will help. But if one is interested in producing answers to questions that don’t come up in normal life (eg, how much is medicine worth), avoiding everyday heuristics is probably worth the cost. Heuristics may well be worth overcoming in everyday life, as well, but I don’t think any experiments I’ve heard about shed any light on this.
Torture:
Your proposals are too detailed. I don’t imagine an opportunity to experiment enough to figure out how to structure torture, and if I do get an opportunity to experiment on government structure, torture is not going to be high on my list of variables. A government is an extremely expensive experimental apparatus. At least I can imagine how to experiment with corporal punishment, but I don’t really have much of an idea of how one could go about comparing the efficacy of different interrogation methods or the general investigative qualities of, say, American and Japanese police.
I’m not inclined to find out what you mean by Saddam’s people-shredders, but I imagine that one effect was a deterrent to crime, especially crime that would get Saddam’s attention. Torture, especially creative torture with vivid imagery, may well exploit salience(?) biases to be a more effective deterrent (aside from the rationally greater desire to avoid torture+death than to avoid death). The role of whim on one’s fate may also have (irrationally) increased the deterrent effect. The vague beliefs people hold about prison rape may play a very similar role in the US system. We do have arbitrary torture in our criminal justice system already.
Tom Myers,
Systematic but unexplained: sure, most errors are probably due to heuristics, but I’m not sure that’s a useful statement. A number of posts here have been so specific, they don’t seem like useful starting points for searching for heuristics.
Cost:
Most people don’t seem to have sufficiently clear goals to make sense of whether something benefits or costs them, let alone balancing the two.
People live normal lives by not thinking too much about things, so it shouldn’t be so surprising that they don’t think in psych experiments in which it is often clear that analysis will help. But if one is interested in producing answers to questions that don’t come up in normal life (eg, how much is medicine worth), avoiding everyday heuristics is probably worth the cost. Heuristics may well be worth overcoming in everyday life, as well, but I don’t think any experiments I’ve heard about shed any light on this.
Torture:
Your proposals are too detailed. I don’t imagine an opportunity to experiment enough to figure out how to structure torture, and if I do get an opportunity to experiment on government structure, torture is not going to be high on my list of variables. A government is an extremely expensive experimental apparatus. At least I can imagine how to experiment with corporal punishment, but I don’t really have much of an idea of how one could go about comparing the efficacy of different interrogation methods or the general investigative qualities of, say, American and Japanese police.
I’m not inclined to find out what you mean by Saddam’s people-shredders, but I imagine that one effect was a deterrent to crime, especially crime that would get Saddam’s attention. Torture, especially creative torture with vivid imagery, may well exploit salience(?) biases to be a more effective deterrent (aside from the rationally greater desire to avoid torture+death than to avoid death). The role of whim on one’s fate may also have (irrationally) increased the deterrent effect. The vague beliefs people hold about prison rape may play a very similar role in the US system. We do have arbitrary torture in our criminal justice system already.
Winston survives.