Hans

Karma: 185

Hans 19 Apr 2010 8:56 UTC
6 points
on: Attention Lurkers: Please say hi
Hi. I’ve made a few posts here and there, but have mostly been lurking lately.

Hans 11 Sep 2009 0:56 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Nanani’s comment on: Let Them Debate College Students
I know that the student would be studying a related field; that was not the point. I as a hypothetical viewer would not care what the grad student was studying, exactly, I would care that he was only a 20-year old graduate student still studying at a university (that I would assume to be populated with liberal professors).

“Winners don’t win by playing dumb.”

And that is why I don’t get this proposal. It is assumed that this college student would absolutely destroy the creationist debater and persuade the open-minded and objective audience through sheer, well, persuasiveness. But the audience, unless already completely in favor of evolution, is at least sympathetic to the creationist and interested in their views. This proposal would signal that this experienced debater and high-status leader of a movement is no more than a wet-behind-the-ears, unexperienced student. Doubting listeners would dismiss this fact out of hand and a priori; they will think it condescending to send someone like that to debate someone like this, which it is, to the creationist but especially to the audience. They will then attach less weight to any arguments, however persuasive, the student would make.

Biasing your audience against you before the debate has even started is not a viable tactic.

Hans 10 Sep 2009 22:59 UTC
2 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Let Them Debate College Students
Okay, but he’s clearly young. I don’t see how sending a low-status person to debate a high-status person could ever convince the adherents of the high-status person.

Hans 10 Sep 2009 19:31 UTC
7 points
on: Let Them Debate College Students
So I’ve turned on the tv to watch a debate on evolution and creationism on CNN (or Fox News). The creationists have sent an older, respectable-looking gentleman in a suit, bible in hand. The evolutionists have sent a scrappy-looking college kid in jeans, barely out of his diapers and studying something fancy-shmancy at the University of Liberal Professors, Berkeley.

A priori, whose side will I be on?

How many people will think: “Is this the best guy the evolutionists have to offer?”

Hans 11 Aug 2009 13:29 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Misleading the witness
As previous comments have said, it would be possible to sell the 15% chance for anything up to $150k. Once people realise that the 15% chance is a liquid asset, I’m sure many will change their mind and take that instead of the $500.

What does this mean? If the 15% chance is made liquid, that removes nearly all of the risk of taking that chance. This leads me to believe that people pick the $500 because they are, quite simply, (extremely) risk-averse. Other explanations (diminishing marginal utility of money, the $1 million actually having negative utility, etc.) are either wrong, or they are not a large factor in the decision-making process.

Hans 8 Aug 2009 21:27 UTC
0 points
in reply to: SoullessAutomaton’s comment on: Why Real Men Wear Pink
yeah, what he said, except that i couldn’t find the words to explain it in English.

Hans 8 Aug 2009 17:18 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Tyrrell_McAllister’s comment on: Why Real Men Wear Pink
They emphasize the legs and the thighs, and create a more “female” body posture.

Hans 7 Aug 2009 10:11 UTC
17 points
in reply to: Jonathan_Graehl’s comment on: Why Real Men Wear Pink
What a fascinating case of parallel evolution: As the cicada has a life cycle of 17 years (a prime number) to avoid predators with shorter life cycles, so too does the common or garden nerd choose clothes that are fashionable only once every 17 years, to minimize overlap with other, dangerous fashions.

Hans 31 Jul 2009 9:35 UTC
1 point
in reply to: lavalamp’s comment on: The Hero With A Thousand Chances
“someone who’s never heard of X (in this case the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the anthropic principle) isn’t going to have a clue what the hell you’re talking about.”

Yeah, that must be why I didn’t understand anything. But I got the tolkien reference!

Hans 22 Jul 2009 23:35 UTC
1 point
in reply to: SoullessAutomaton’s comment on: Shut Up And Guess
Indeed. As a consequence, once you can narrow the answer down to two or three choices, you’re always better off guessing.

Hans 22 Jul 2009 23:03 UTC
5 points
on: Shut Up And Guess
It sounds like your fellow students understood the concept of a guessing penalty, but did not realise that the guessing penalty was too low in this case. One approach to convince them might have been:

Assume you get −0.0001 points for guessing an incorrect answer. Obviously, you should answer every question, because the penalty for guessing is so low. Now, assume that the guessing penalty is −20 points. Again, you obviously shouldn’t guess. What would the penalty have to be where you’re indifferent between guessing and not guessing? Obviously, when the penalty is −1 point. You guess two answers, one is correct and the other not, and your expected score is 0. In this case the penalty is −0.5, which is closer to −0.0001 than to −20, therefore you should always guess.

NB At my university, multiple choice exams always feature four possible answers, and you lose .33 for guessing incorrectly. Every student understands this concept perfectly. If they had to take your exam, they would’ve guessed every single time. It’s strange to see that there are universities where the guessing penalty is not well calibrated. It seems like an elementary thing to do.

Hans 14 May 2009 12:21 UTC
3 points
on: Sunk Cost Fallacy
Seth godin has a few examples of sunk costs. I believe these examples better represent true sunk costs than some of the examples given here (such as the movie ticket).

For example, suppose you have paid 50 dollars for a Bruce Springsteen concert. You have searched long and hard for tickets this cheap. Suddenly, somebody offers you 500 dollars for the ticket. Do you sell it? The ticket is now worth $500 to you, and you would have never paid $500 for a ticket in the first place.

Hans 20 Apr 2009 0:53 UTC
0 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Of Gender and Rationality
What do the women reading this post think of these statements?

As a man, I often find myself thinking the same thing, however I have yet to meet a woman who does.

Hans 16 Apr 2009 0:23 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Paul Crowley’s comment on: Sunk Cost Fallacy
Yes, and if there was a utility lever that you could pull to gain utility, you would spend your entire life pulling the lever. But there isn’t. And you cannot teleport, nor will you be able to in the foreseeable future. So Alicorn will have to continue taking the burden of travel into account when deciding whether or not to visit a place he would like to have visited.

Hans 13 Apr 2009 10:14 UTC
6 points
in reply to: AnnaSalamon’s comment on: Extreme Rationality: It’s Not That Great
I second that. Here in the LW/OB/sci-fi/atheism/cryonics/AI… community, many of us fit quite a few stereotypes. I’ll summarize them in one word that everybody understands: we’re all nerds*. This means our lives and personalities introduce many biases into our way of thinking, and these often preclude discussions about acting rationally in interpersonal situations such as sales, dating etc. because we don’t have much experience in these fields. Anything that bridges this gap would be extremely useful.

*this is not a value judgment. And not everybody conforms to this stereotype. I know, I know, but this is not the point. I’m talking averages here.

Hans 13 Apr 2009 9:55 UTC
12 points
in reply to: Paul Crowley’s comment on: Extreme Rationality: It’s Not That Great
But many poor/middle-class people also believe that they can never become rich (except for the lottery) because the only ways to become rich are crime, fraud, or inheritance. And this leads them to underestimate the value of hard work, education, and risk-taking.

The median rationalist will perform better than these cynics. But his average wealth will also be higher, assuming he accurately observes his chances at becoming succesful.

Hans 12 Apr 2009 21:59 UTC
6 points
on: Sunk Cost Fallacy
Another reason for honoring the sunk cost of the movie ticket (related to avoiding regret) is that you know yourself well enough to realize you often make mistakes. There are many irrational reasons why you would not want to see the movie after all. Maybe you’re unwilling to get up and go to the movie because you feel a little tired after eating too much. Maybe a friend who has already seen the movie discourages you to go, even though you know your tastes in movies don’t always match. Maybe you’re a little depressed and distracted by work/relationship/whatever problems. Etc.

For whatever reason, your past self chose to buy the ticket, and your present self does not want to see the movie. Your present self has more information. But this extra information is of dubious quality, and is not always relevant to the decision. But it still influences your state of mind, and you know that. How do you know which self is right? You don’t, until after you’ve seen the movie. The marginal costs, in terms of mental discomfort, of seeing the movie and not liking it, are usually smaller than the marginal benefit of staying home and thinking about what a great movie it could have been.

The reasoning behind this trivial example can easily be adapted to sunk cost choices in situations that do matter.

The sunk cost fallacy is easy to understand and to point out to others, but I caution against using it too often. The point of the fallacy is to show that only future costs and benefits matter when making a decision. This is true, but in reality those costs and benefits (and especially their probabilities) are hard to define. It is not clear whether the extra information that was received after ‘sinking’ the cost has an impact on the cost and benefit probabilities. You also know that, in any case, if the decision to sink the cost in the first place was the right one after all, the decision to continue is even more rational as a large part of the cost has already been spent. You can go see a movie for free that other people still have to pay for.

Hans 11 Apr 2009 21:28 UTC
2 points
in reply to: MichaelHoward’s comment on: Toxic Truth
Your post definitely illustrates your point, by misleading otherwise well-informed LW readers for at least a few paragraphs.*

Therefore, I believe it’s a useful post. However, as you can see in the comments, the temptation to write lame follow-up jokes is just too big. Don’t expect too much serious discussion here.

*unless they were previously familiar with the joke, of course.

Hans 11 Apr 2009 21:23 UTC
2 points
in reply to: CronoDAS’s comment on: Toxic Truth
Those people died after ingesting impure DHMO, which is ‘watered down’ by relatively unharmful minerals, making it only fatal after ingesting large amounts. 100% pure, distilled DHMO is actually extremely dangerous even in small quantities, as it leeches essential nutrients from your body through a nefarious process called ‘reverse osmosis’.

[EDIT: this is actually not true, according to the wisdom of the interwebs. Thank you, extremely expensive European public school system, for filling my young impressionable mind with this untrue factoid. Nevertheless, the dangers and risks of DHMO ingestion remain poorly understood.]

Hans 7 Apr 2009 17:33 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Paul Crowley’s comment on: Real-Life Anthropic Weirdness
I get your point now. But all we need to know is whether P(L|H) > P(L|~H)*.

If this is the case, then if an extremely unlikely (P(L/~H) → 0) event L happens to you, this evidently increases the chance that you’re in a holodeck simulation. In the formula, P(L|H) equates to (almost) 1 as P(L|~H) approaches zero. The unlikelier the event (amazons on unicorns descending from the heavens to take you to the land of bread and honey), i.e. the larger the difference between P(L|H) and P(L|~H), the larger the probability that you’re experiencing a simulation.

This is true as long as P(L|H) > P(L|~H). If L is a mundane event, P(L|H) = P(L|~H) and the formula reduces to P(H|L) = P(H). If L is so supremely banal that P(L|~H) > p(L|H), the occurence of L actually decreases the chance that you’re experiencing a holodeck simulation.

Indeed, I believe that was the point of the original post.

The core assumption remains, of course, that you’re more likely to win the lottery when you’re experiencing a holodeck simulation than in the real world (P(L|H) > P(L|~H)).

I’m not well-versed in Bayesian reasoning, so correct me if I’m wrong. Your posts have definitely helped to clarify my thoughts.

*I don’t know how to type the “not”-sign, so I’ll use a tilde.