The problem is that you assume that you know the relevant biases.
Wikipedia has a list; I’ve checked a few of them, and the rest are on my TODO list. I have that page watched so if there’s a new bias I’ll know.
There are often cases where you don’t know why someone screws up. There are domains where it’s easier to get knowledge about how much people screw up than understanding the reasons behind screwups.
Information is produced regardless, and often recorded (see e.g. Gwern’s Mistakes page). So long as I myself don’t screw up, which, assuming that I always follow my decision procedure and my decision procedure is correct, I won’t, then it doesn’t matter.
Fear produces fight or flight responses. People often fight out of fear. Aggression often comes out of weakness.
OK, but I was talking about “perceived willingness to be aggressive” (signal), not aggression (action).
A karate black belt is dominant but usually not aggressive. Taller people get payed more money because being tall is a signal for social dominance.
Someone wearing a black belt is probably going to be perceived as more aggressive, the same way someone idly cleaning their fingernails with a sharp knife might be. Similarly if a person adopts something recognized as a fighting stance. Not certain about tall people, that’s probably something else besides perceived aggressiveness, e.g. “My parents were rich and could feed me a lot”.
This has gone on long enough that it might be worth summarizing into a post… do you want to write it or should I?
Wikipedia has a list; I’ve checked a few of them, and the rest are on my TODO list. I have that page watched so if there’s a new bias I’ll know.
There not good evidence for the claim that reading a list of a bunch of biases improves your decision making ability. See Eliezers discussion on the hindsight bias: http://lesswrong.com/lw/il/hindsight_bias/
Someone wearing a black belt is probably going to be perceived as more aggressive, the same way someone idly cleaning their fingernails with a sharp knife might be.
I’m not so much talking about actually wearing the black belt but the psychological changes that the kind of training that makes people a black belt creates. Changes in confidence and body language.
This has gone on long enough that it might be worth summarizing into a post… do you want to write it or should I?
We went through many separate points and at the moment I don’t know how to pull them in a good way together into one post. If you see a decent way feel free.
There not good evidence for the claim that reading a list of a bunch of biases improves your decision making ability. See Eliezers discussion on the hindsight bias: http://lesswrong.com/lw/il/hindsight_bias/
I checked that the procedure accounts for the biases. Hindsight bias is avoided by computing uncertainty using a regression analysis. Availability bias is avoided by using a large database with random sampling. Etc. I haven’t gone through all of them, but so far the biases I’ve looked at can’t affect the decision outcome because the human isn’t directly involved in those stages of computation.
Someone wearing a black belt is probably going to be perceived as more aggressive
And there’s even a study on black uniforms that shows they increase perceived aggression.
Changes in confidence and body language.
This page says martial arts training increases dominance, as you say. On the other hand, that study also says that martial arts training decreases (observed) aggression. This study says perceived aggressiveness is highly correlated with proportion of mixed-martial-arts fights won, which I interpret as also meaning that martial arts training increases perceived aggression before a fight (since martial training ought to result in winning more martial arts fights). So it looks like martial arts training encourages controlling the aggressiveness signal, suppressing it in some non-fighting cases and enhancing it in competition. Or else the actual aggression levels decreased because the willingness to fight was communicated more clearly and thus people chose to fight less because their estimates of the costs rose.
We went through many separate points and at the moment I don’t know how to pull them in a good way together into one post. If you see a decent way feel free.
My general writing strategy is as follows: I go through source material, write down all the quotes/facts that seem useful into a bullet list, then sort alphabetically, then reorder and group the bullets, then rewrite the sub-bullets into paragraphs, then reorder the paragraphs, then remove the list formatting and add paragraph formatting, then add a title and introduction. (The conclusion is just more facts/quotes). I’ve practiced this on a couple of my required-because-core essays and they’ve gotten reasonable marks (B+ / A- level depending on how nice the teacher is).
In most social situations aggressiveness is bad. A woman doesn’t want an aggressive boyfriend. But she usually want that her boyfriend isn’t low status without any amount of dominance.
If you sit in school it’s good if your teacher is dominant but aggression is not a sign of a good teacher.
Or else the actual aggression levels decreased because the willingness to fight was communicated more clearly and thus people chose to fight less because their estimates of the costs rose.
People don’t make clear estimates of costs when in high pressure situations. Instead fight/flight/freeze reactions trigger. Martial arts training removes that trigger and instead allows it’s participants to make more conscious decisions about whether to fight. Being able to make conscious decisions often leads to less fights.
I’ve practiced this on a couple of my required-because-core essays and they’ve gotten reasonable marks (B+ / A- level depending on how nice the teacher is).
Wikipedia has a list; I’ve checked a few of them, and the rest are on my TODO list. I have that page watched so if there’s a new bias I’ll know.
Information is produced regardless, and often recorded (see e.g. Gwern’s Mistakes page). So long as I myself don’t screw up, which, assuming that I always follow my decision procedure and my decision procedure is correct, I won’t, then it doesn’t matter.
OK, but I was talking about “perceived willingness to be aggressive” (signal), not aggression (action).
Someone wearing a black belt is probably going to be perceived as more aggressive, the same way someone idly cleaning their fingernails with a sharp knife might be. Similarly if a person adopts something recognized as a fighting stance. Not certain about tall people, that’s probably something else besides perceived aggressiveness, e.g. “My parents were rich and could feed me a lot”.
This has gone on long enough that it might be worth summarizing into a post… do you want to write it or should I?
There not good evidence for the claim that reading a list of a bunch of biases improves your decision making ability. See Eliezers discussion on the hindsight bias: http://lesswrong.com/lw/il/hindsight_bias/
I’m not so much talking about actually wearing the black belt but the psychological changes that the kind of training that makes people a black belt creates. Changes in confidence and body language.
We went through many separate points and at the moment I don’t know how to pull them in a good way together into one post. If you see a decent way feel free.
I checked that the procedure accounts for the biases. Hindsight bias is avoided by computing uncertainty using a regression analysis. Availability bias is avoided by using a large database with random sampling. Etc. I haven’t gone through all of them, but so far the biases I’ve looked at can’t affect the decision outcome because the human isn’t directly involved in those stages of computation.
And there’s even a study on black uniforms that shows they increase perceived aggression.
This page says martial arts training increases dominance, as you say. On the other hand, that study also says that martial arts training decreases (observed) aggression. This study says perceived aggressiveness is highly correlated with proportion of mixed-martial-arts fights won, which I interpret as also meaning that martial arts training increases perceived aggression before a fight (since martial training ought to result in winning more martial arts fights). So it looks like martial arts training encourages controlling the aggressiveness signal, suppressing it in some non-fighting cases and enhancing it in competition. Or else the actual aggression levels decreased because the willingness to fight was communicated more clearly and thus people chose to fight less because their estimates of the costs rose.
My general writing strategy is as follows: I go through source material, write down all the quotes/facts that seem useful into a bullet list, then sort alphabetically, then reorder and group the bullets, then rewrite the sub-bullets into paragraphs, then reorder the paragraphs, then remove the list formatting and add paragraph formatting, then add a title and introduction. (The conclusion is just more facts/quotes). I’ve practiced this on a couple of my required-because-core essays and they’ve gotten reasonable marks (B+ / A- level depending on how nice the teacher is).
In most social situations aggressiveness is bad. A woman doesn’t want an aggressive boyfriend. But she usually want that her boyfriend isn’t low status without any amount of dominance.
If you sit in school it’s good if your teacher is dominant but aggression is not a sign of a good teacher.
People don’t make clear estimates of costs when in high pressure situations. Instead fight/flight/freeze reactions trigger. Martial arts training removes that trigger and instead allows it’s participants to make more conscious decisions about whether to fight. Being able to make conscious decisions often leads to less fights.
Then I’m happy to see the outcome in this case.