I agree with the point being made here, and I think it’s an important one to make. I, also, am unsure about how well this description of the problem will convince people who are not already convinced that this is an issue. I feel like often I see people putting too much faith in simplified models, and forgetting the fragility of the assumptions necessary for their model to be applicable. There are better ways to solve such a problem than just falling back to a vague outside-view approximation.
I would love it if more discussions of the future had the shape of:
If A and B, then model X applies.
If A and not B, then model Y applies.
If not A and not B, then model Z applies.
If B and not A, then we don’t yet have a model. Let’s think of one.
And then talking about the probability of the various states of A and B.
But instead I feel like someone has model X, and their response to being told that this holds only if A and B come true, then they double-down on insisting that (A and B) is the most likely outcome and on refining the details of X.
I agree with the point being made here, and I think it’s an important one to make. I, also, am unsure about how well this description of the problem will convince people who are not already convinced that this is an issue. I feel like often I see people putting too much faith in simplified models, and forgetting the fragility of the assumptions necessary for their model to be applicable. There are better ways to solve such a problem than just falling back to a vague outside-view approximation.
I would love it if more discussions of the future had the shape of: If A and B, then model X applies. If A and not B, then model Y applies. If not A and not B, then model Z applies. If B and not A, then we don’t yet have a model. Let’s think of one.
And then talking about the probability of the various states of A and B.
But instead I feel like someone has model X, and their response to being told that this holds only if A and B come true, then they double-down on insisting that (A and B) is the most likely outcome and on refining the details of X.