he has nothing to suggest that such a lack of evidence indicates anything.
That’s a different discussion. As you said,
The whole point of this discussion is that his reasoning does not coincide with his actions.
I was simply arguing that your characterization of his argument as inherently self-contradictory was incorrect. Yeah, his supposed priors are probably wrong, but that’s a different issue.
But what is the date? Is it 2 months? 6 months? A year? 5 years?
Okay, say it’s 6 months. Does that make his argument non-contradictory?
If I predict it’s going to rain soon because of a long dry spell, when it rains that doesn’t prove me wrong.
If I predict it’s going to rain soon because of a long dry spell, when it rains that doesn’t prove me wrong.
Of course not, you have a pattern of weather to base that on, in which dry spells were consistently followed by rain.
Where is the basis for a lack of subversion? Historically, a lack of subversion has meant no subversion was ever planned, on what basis is this different for the 5th Column?
Okay, say it’s 6 months. Does that make his argument non-contradictory?
Yes, because now your evidence is that, if there is a 5th column, major subversion occurs every 6 months. This is testable.
His classification of a lack of subversion as evidence that the 5th Column is planning a major strike flies in the face of history—he has a small handful of anomalies to rely on. That’s all.
I’ll point to Eliezer’s example of mammograms in his “Intuitive Explanation of Bayes Theorem” to help describe what I mean, particularly since it’s pretty easy to find a very in-depth beysian analysis of this particular problem by Eliezer himself. In the example, 1% of women get breast cancer. 80% of the time a mammogram will test positive if a woman has breast cancer, 20% of the time it will test negative. 10% of the time a mammogram will test positive for someone who doesn’t have breast cancer. This works out to a 7.8% likelihood that a woman has cancer if she gets a positive result on a mammogram. Conversely, getting a negative result on a mammogram results in a 0.22% likelihood that a woman has cancer.
In the Warren scenario, the 5th Column planning an attack is like the 1% breast cancer rate, and finding evidence of subversion is the mammogram. Not finding any evidence of subversion is the exact same as getting a negative on a mammogram in the breast cancer scenario. It has happened, sure, but it is extremely rare and in the vast majority of cases no subversion means no planned subversion. The problem is you don’t have a history of major subversion without evidence of subversion. Throughout history it has been the exact opposite, therefore a lack of subversion must have a very low probability for preceding a major subversive attack.
Warren’s position is like saying he believes there is a high risk of breast cancer because the mammogram came up negative. The only reasonable response to that is WTF? Yes, it’s possible that the fifth column is planning something, but you cannot assume that because the evidence says otherwise, that’s not reasonable at all. You can come to the conclusion through other evidence, but not with that evidence.
What Warren managed to do is take evidence that did not support his fear and claim that it did. It doesn’t make any sense, it is an unreasonable position to take.
Now, if Warren had said “There is a very low likelihood that the 5th Column is planning a surprise attack, but I am not willing to take that risk” then it’s an entirely different situation, and that is a completely reasonable response. If breast cancer means being forced to fight through Dante’s 9 levels of hell, then it might be worth a double-mastectomy in spite of the 1 in 500 chance that it would happen.
I was wrong when I said that a single case of subversion falsifies his position. Obviously surprise attacks exist, so that was clearly incorrect, and I think it led to a lot of the disagreement in the discussion. I was looking at the problem too narrowly. However the reason surprise attacks are a surprise is because they are very rare, so the fact that nothing has happened must still overwhelmingly support the idea that nothing will happen. In other words, it is overwhelming evidence against an attack, not for it. That’s the only reason surprise attacks work at all, because you you have no evidence to suggest they are coming (and that they haven’t attacked is not such evidence).
That’s a different discussion. As you said,
I was simply arguing that your characterization of his argument as inherently self-contradictory was incorrect. Yeah, his supposed priors are probably wrong, but that’s a different issue.
Okay, say it’s 6 months. Does that make his argument non-contradictory?
If I predict it’s going to rain soon because of a long dry spell, when it rains that doesn’t prove me wrong.
Of course not, you have a pattern of weather to base that on, in which dry spells were consistently followed by rain.
Where is the basis for a lack of subversion? Historically, a lack of subversion has meant no subversion was ever planned, on what basis is this different for the 5th Column?
Yes, because now your evidence is that, if there is a 5th column, major subversion occurs every 6 months. This is testable.
His classification of a lack of subversion as evidence that the 5th Column is planning a major strike flies in the face of history—he has a small handful of anomalies to rely on. That’s all.
I’ll point to Eliezer’s example of mammograms in his “Intuitive Explanation of Bayes Theorem” to help describe what I mean, particularly since it’s pretty easy to find a very in-depth beysian analysis of this particular problem by Eliezer himself. In the example, 1% of women get breast cancer. 80% of the time a mammogram will test positive if a woman has breast cancer, 20% of the time it will test negative. 10% of the time a mammogram will test positive for someone who doesn’t have breast cancer. This works out to a 7.8% likelihood that a woman has cancer if she gets a positive result on a mammogram. Conversely, getting a negative result on a mammogram results in a 0.22% likelihood that a woman has cancer.
In the Warren scenario, the 5th Column planning an attack is like the 1% breast cancer rate, and finding evidence of subversion is the mammogram. Not finding any evidence of subversion is the exact same as getting a negative on a mammogram in the breast cancer scenario. It has happened, sure, but it is extremely rare and in the vast majority of cases no subversion means no planned subversion. The problem is you don’t have a history of major subversion without evidence of subversion. Throughout history it has been the exact opposite, therefore a lack of subversion must have a very low probability for preceding a major subversive attack.
Warren’s position is like saying he believes there is a high risk of breast cancer because the mammogram came up negative. The only reasonable response to that is WTF? Yes, it’s possible that the fifth column is planning something, but you cannot assume that because the evidence says otherwise, that’s not reasonable at all. You can come to the conclusion through other evidence, but not with that evidence.
What Warren managed to do is take evidence that did not support his fear and claim that it did. It doesn’t make any sense, it is an unreasonable position to take.
Now, if Warren had said “There is a very low likelihood that the 5th Column is planning a surprise attack, but I am not willing to take that risk” then it’s an entirely different situation, and that is a completely reasonable response. If breast cancer means being forced to fight through Dante’s 9 levels of hell, then it might be worth a double-mastectomy in spite of the 1 in 500 chance that it would happen.
I was wrong when I said that a single case of subversion falsifies his position. Obviously surprise attacks exist, so that was clearly incorrect, and I think it led to a lot of the disagreement in the discussion. I was looking at the problem too narrowly. However the reason surprise attacks are a surprise is because they are very rare, so the fact that nothing has happened must still overwhelmingly support the idea that nothing will happen. In other words, it is overwhelming evidence against an attack, not for it. That’s the only reason surprise attacks work at all, because you you have no evidence to suggest they are coming (and that they haven’t attacked is not such evidence).
Hopefully I’ve explained myself adequately now.