Re overconfidence. As I mentioned recently, sometimes what makes me doubt my views in a certain area is when I see someone holding the same views for the same reasons in the same area (say, AGI feasibility), but whose views and reasons for holding them in other areas I find to have low credibility (say, animal welfare). My train of thought is something like this:
Everyone is biased to some degree and neither of us is an exception.
There must be a reason why our views on some topic diverge, even though we seem to have access to the same information and have thought seriously about the topic.
One likely reason is that we have different priors/assign different weight to the same information, which is a polite way of saying that we have different biases.
Independently holding similar views for similar non-trivial reasons probably means that we are similarly intelligent, so simply adopting or dismissing the other person’s views where they diverge from mine is a wrong thing to do.
I can usually track the other person apparent bias in the divergent area, but all I honestly know is that this is a relative bias, given my views, since both of us have access to the same evidence.
If I am honest with myself, I ought to admit that I could be the one biased, with some significant probability.
The hard part is admitting that this probability can be close to 50% (I still don’t alieve that).
Significant relative bias in one area implies that similar biases can be present in other areas, including the one where we both hold similar views.
This means assigning higher probability of me being biased in the area of agreement.
...Aaaand usually what happens after that is that I soon forget about it and regress to my original entrenched position.
Re overconfidence. As I mentioned recently, sometimes what makes me doubt my views in a certain area is when I see someone holding the same views for the same reasons in the same area (say, AGI feasibility), but whose views and reasons for holding them in other areas I find to have low credibility (say, animal welfare). My train of thought is something like this:
Everyone is biased to some degree and neither of us is an exception.
There must be a reason why our views on some topic diverge, even though we seem to have access to the same information and have thought seriously about the topic.
One likely reason is that we have different priors/assign different weight to the same information, which is a polite way of saying that we have different biases.
Independently holding similar views for similar non-trivial reasons probably means that we are similarly intelligent, so simply adopting or dismissing the other person’s views where they diverge from mine is a wrong thing to do.
I can usually track the other person apparent bias in the divergent area, but all I honestly know is that this is a relative bias, given my views, since both of us have access to the same evidence.
If I am honest with myself, I ought to admit that I could be the one biased, with some significant probability.
The hard part is admitting that this probability can be close to 50% (I still don’t alieve that).
Significant relative bias in one area implies that similar biases can be present in other areas, including the one where we both hold similar views.
This means assigning higher probability of me being biased in the area of agreement.
...Aaaand usually what happens after that is that I soon forget about it and regress to my original entrenched position.