The post’s own title describes the bias as fictional. It is tagged “aprilfools”. All of the citations are, even at a glance, either made up or about different biases. The post is peppered with weasel words in place of real references, like “As it turns out”. The comments mention it’s an April Fool’s gag, and point to related real articles. The examples are completely absurd—and while the absurdity heuristic isn’t perfect, “even though appearances can be misleading, they’re usually not.”
Grognor, I don’t think it’s fair to insinuate that you may have learned a wrong lesson here. If it’s wrong (I actually doubt that it is), then it’s up to you to try to resist learning it.
As regards walking readers into a trap to teach them lessons, one of my all-time favorite LW posts does exactly this, but is very forthcoming about it. By contrast, I think thomblake overestimates the absurdity of the examples here: I thought they seemed plausible, and that “Frodo Baggins” was just poor reasoning. The comments show I’m not alone here. This level of subtlety may be appropriate on April 1st, but by April 3rd, it’s dated. I would recommend editing in a final line after the conclusion but before the references indicating that this post was an April Fool’s joke.
The post’s own title describes the bias as fictional. It is tagged “aprilfools”. All of the citations are, even at a glance, either made up or about different biases. The post is peppered with weasel words in place of real references, like “As it turns out”. The comments mention it’s an April Fool’s gag, and point to related real articles. The examples are completely absurd—and while the absurdity heuristic isn’t perfect, “even though appearances can be misleading, they’re usually not.”
And the effect probably does really exist!
There are several lessons in there...
And yet, I was still fooled.
You have taught me not to change my mind so easily.
why
Grognor, I don’t think it’s fair to insinuate that you may have learned a wrong lesson here. If it’s wrong (I actually doubt that it is), then it’s up to you to try to resist learning it.
As regards walking readers into a trap to teach them lessons, one of my all-time favorite LW posts does exactly this, but is very forthcoming about it. By contrast, I think thomblake overestimates the absurdity of the examples here: I thought they seemed plausible, and that “Frodo Baggins” was just poor reasoning. The comments show I’m not alone here. This level of subtlety may be appropriate on April 1st, but by April 3rd, it’s dated. I would recommend editing in a final line after the conclusion but before the references indicating that this post was an April Fool’s joke.
I’m not so sure the lesson is wrong. I’m very confused by this particular meta level, and I don’t think this confusion will ever actually be resolved.
Edit: but you’re right, I implied that this was a bad lesson to learn and shouldn’t have done that.
Done, with appropriate subtlety.