(thanks for the—negative—feedback, I edited my answer to make it clearer)
Biases are data compression mistakes.
Talking about a neutrality bias as a laziness of the rational mind, I think Eliezer hurried up a bit when choosing the examples: he intended to point out some bad consequences in situations with a high difference in complexity.
The school director is tasteless in not putting the smallest effort because of “eh, they are just kids”. For them it is important. Injustice is intense at all ages; primates feel it. And the ‘wise’ school director is disgusting, yes. Easy answer to simple situation. Also a pacifist who dances for peace is ridiculous. And Yvain’s polarized example characters (those journalists who emotionally cherry-pick to convince you) are, well, negative. Easy answer to complex situation.
But the common theme here is that they share the fact that they are simplistic. We are biased when we feel disgust, a conclusion is strongly formed and maybe there to stay. Cherry picking/ selective observation at work here, those images jump into your eyes or at the surface of your memory. So if the examples are a bit off we may see distorted pictures of the idea—that is, we make wrong conclusions out of very partial examples. My point is that Yvain and Eliezer probably have the same take on the concept if they are to judge the same example. There are lazy ‘wise’ and lazy opinionated.
I’d risk saying that we can use a rule of thumb for complex situations such: Is the situation really complex and with unknown unknowns? If yes, then reset to the wise posture (as if being profound is some sort of attitude). Otherwise you’ll take one position too quickly and there is a great chance to became opinionated.
Those we legitimately call wise are always flirting with complexity. The wise equidistant attitude is like a joke, in the sense that it reveals the contrary, the imposture of the simplistic.
(thanks for the—negative—feedback, I edited my answer to make it clearer)
Biases are data compression mistakes.
Talking about a neutrality bias as a laziness of the rational mind, I think Eliezer hurried up a bit when choosing the examples: he intended to point out some bad consequences in situations with a high difference in complexity. The school director is tasteless in not putting the smallest effort because of “eh, they are just kids”. For them it is important. Injustice is intense at all ages; primates feel it. And the ‘wise’ school director is disgusting, yes. Easy answer to simple situation. Also a pacifist who dances for peace is ridiculous. And Yvain’s polarized example characters (those journalists who emotionally cherry-pick to convince you) are, well, negative. Easy answer to complex situation.
But the common theme here is that they share the fact that they are simplistic. We are biased when we feel disgust, a conclusion is strongly formed and maybe there to stay. Cherry picking/ selective observation at work here, those images jump into your eyes or at the surface of your memory. So if the examples are a bit off we may see distorted pictures of the idea—that is, we make wrong conclusions out of very partial examples. My point is that Yvain and Eliezer probably have the same take on the concept if they are to judge the same example. There are lazy ‘wise’ and lazy opinionated.
I’d risk saying that we can use a rule of thumb for complex situations such: Is the situation really complex and with unknown unknowns? If yes, then reset to the wise posture (as if being profound is some sort of attitude). Otherwise you’ll take one position too quickly and there is a great chance to became opinionated.
Those we legitimately call wise are always flirting with complexity. The wise equidistant attitude is like a joke, in the sense that it reveals the contrary, the imposture of the simplistic.