I think he meant unintuitive in the sense of “not accessible by human intuition, type 1, fast thinking” not “hard to grasp upon reflection by my intended audience”
I think he meant unintuitive in the sense of “not accessible by human intuition, type 1, fast thinking” not “hard to grasp upon reflection by my intended audience”
Yes. That is the sense in which the power laws seem entirely intuitive, my model (and memory) of myself at age 8 and to the median person in the culture I grew up in. I am wondering now to what extent this intuition difference can be attributed to the degree to which the memes in question were already fully disseminated among that group. Given that I have hazy memories of conversations regarding these topics from when I was (approximately) 8 the “type 1 fast thinking’ would have a handle on it by now.
The best I can say is that the distributions are indeed unintuitive to me (at first), but I’m now well trained enough that they feel intuitive. I imagine that both you and many other LessWrongers are the same. I’d give Jeff the final word on it, but I speculate given that he cross-posted this from a blog written for a much wider audience that the charge of “unintuitive” was not meant specifically to you, but to the general non-LW-ers who would be referred to this post.
It seems a bit weird to argue over whether something is intuitive or not. Intuitive is relative to the mind doing the intuition; it’s not something “out there” that something can either be or not be. Perhaps we should take a poll of LW users?
Unintuitive? Are the intuitions of your expected audience really so poorly calibrated?
(I was expecting something different from the title.)
I think he meant unintuitive in the sense of “not accessible by human intuition, type 1, fast thinking” not “hard to grasp upon reflection by my intended audience”
Yes. That is the sense in which the power laws seem entirely intuitive, my model (and memory) of myself at age 8 and to the median person in the culture I grew up in. I am wondering now to what extent this intuition difference can be attributed to the degree to which the memes in question were already fully disseminated among that group. Given that I have hazy memories of conversations regarding these topics from when I was (approximately) 8 the “type 1 fast thinking’ would have a handle on it by now.
From the article:
Also, the expected audience is wider than just veteran LessWrong users.
You may then deduce that I disagree with this particular claim.
Indeed I would.
The best I can say is that the distributions are indeed unintuitive to me (at first), but I’m now well trained enough that they feel intuitive. I imagine that both you and many other LessWrongers are the same. I’d give Jeff the final word on it, but I speculate given that he cross-posted this from a blog written for a much wider audience that the charge of “unintuitive” was not meant specifically to you, but to the general non-LW-ers who would be referred to this post.
It seems a bit weird to argue over whether something is intuitive or not. Intuitive is relative to the mind doing the intuition; it’s not something “out there” that something can either be or not be. Perhaps we should take a poll of LW users?