41–50 of 58 posts
> Sure, the people in your tribe may do bad things, but only in response to extraordinary circumstances. Attribution Error gets doubly dangerous when combined with another cognitive bias, the Out-group Homogeneity Effect[0], which leads to the Group Attribution Error.[1] This latter error leads people into thinking the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, so "When some…
> Sure, the people in your tribe may do bad things, but only in response to extraordinary circumstances. Attribution Error gets doubly dangerous when combined with another cognitive bias, the Out-group Homogeneity Effect[0], which leads to the Group Attribution Error.[1] This latter error leads people into thinking the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, so "When some…
I'm pretty sure the combination of those two is 90% of the "cyclists don't obey the law" meme. When a cyclist breaks the law they make the whole out-group look bad, but a driver who breaks the law is just "one bad driver." The other 10% is confirmation bias.
Also, a cyclist violating the law is much less dangerous than a driver doing so, the latter has over a hundred times the kinetic energy. So a cyclist might feel that those laws shouldn't apply to them.
> Sure, the people in your tribe may do bad things, but only in response to extraordinary circumstances. Attribution Error gets doubly dangerous when combined with another cognitive bias, the Out-group Homogeneity Effect[0], which leads to the Group Attribution Error.[1] This latter error leads people into thinking the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, so "When some…
> I think the author is not exaggerating by suggesting that solving Attribution Error could dramatically change the outcome of human civilisation, but just identifying it as a problem isn't even half the battle. Perhaps the best we can do for now... I used to think that it might be worth a try for forum administrators to define this behavior as unacceptable just like any other unacceptable behavior (racism, snarkines…
FWIW, I think there's a good chance banning the fundamental attribution error would have no good effects.
I think people mostly do it without realizing it's what they're doing. I suspect that when we notice we're doing it, we usually stop it.
And the human tendency to defensiveness probably means that if someone else tells us "you're doing this," we'll come up with all sorts of plausible reasons why we're not.
Keep in mind, too, that while fundamental attribution error is not a valid reasoning form and thus not legitimate for use in proofs, it is not guaranteed to yield wrong results. Even if you could ban it effectively, it might not actually change much, as there's always more than one way to skin a cat. People are masters of finding ways to believe what we want to believe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure the combination of those two is 90% of the "cyclists don't obey the law" meme. When a cyclist breaks the law they make the whole out-group look bad, but a driver who breaks the law is just "one bad driver." The other 10% is confirmation bias.
Possibly, but I think someone who didn't pass a driving test is going to know driving law less well than someone who did, so there'll probably be more cyclists violating the law. Also, a cyclist violating the law is much less dangerous than a driver doing so, the latter has over a hundred times the kinetic energy. So a cyclist might feel that those laws shouldn't apply to them.
The thing is, most traffic laws are designed to keep drivers safe. They’re also designed for cars. Bicycles aren’t cars, and car drivers tend to be impatient and don’t pay attention, so we have to adjust—-which sometimes means, for example, running the red light a couple of seconds before it turns green. Or turning left on a red light, since I’m not crossing any lanes. Or treating a stop sign as a “slow” sign.
(This is a left-side driving country.)
All of that is necessary to keep my life expectancy up. As for the pedestrians, well, unlike a car I’m perfectly capable of spotting their existence. Nor is a slow-moving bike particularly dangerous.
> Sure, the people in your tribe may do bad things, but only in response to extraordinary circumstances. Attribution Error gets doubly dangerous when combined with another cognitive bias, the Out-group Homogeneity Effect[0], which leads to the Group Attribution Error.[1] This latter error leads people into thinking the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, so "When some…
> I think the author is not exaggerating by suggesting that solving Attribution Error could dramatically change the outcome of human civilisation, but just identifying it as a problem isn't even half the battle. Perhaps the best we can do for now... I used to think that it might be worth a try for forum administrators to define this behavior as unacceptable just like any other unacceptable behavior (racism, snarkines…
This is surely an argument for dropping the whole guidelines then?
Anyway I agree that attribution error should be unacceptable, the real issue is that it's very hard to point out when someone is making this particular mistake vs. other kinds of mistakes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't make the mistake to believe others are thinking wrongly, that their conclusions rely on errors. Such insights are valuable to correct your own thinking and you can share the insights you have gained. Aside from attribution errors, it could just be a political play to push responsibility of the behavior of certain individuals on groups. That is a common and deliberate political strategy that happens without anyo…
Eh, someone is making an error if such political play is successful, it just may not be the speaker. Populist rhetoric is all about telling people what they already want to hear, that is, exploiting and amplifying existing cognitive biases in the target audience.
Does that not describe both of our political parties?
Reading about this concept for the first time truly expanded my ability to understand the world. Another worthy addition to "Things That Should Actually Be Taught in Schools" type lists. However I see a missing element in the usual commentary. The error (or bias) goes both ways, yet only one is emphasised. To quote the article: "most people don’t take the power of circumstance seriously enough" (in regards to underst…
The research doesn’t support this though. Behavior seems to be mostly a function of the social context, as milgrim learned. We would love to be snowflakes but we are all pretty much the same.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the author is not exaggerating by suggesting that solving Attribution Error could dramatically change the outcome of human civilisation, but just identifying it as a problem isn't even half the battle. Perhaps the best we can do for now... I used to think that it might be worth a try for forum administrators to define this behavior as unacceptable just like any other unacceptable behavior (racism, snarkines…
> but then @dang informed me that improvements to human behavior in the future are impossible because people will continue to behave the way they do indefinitely, regardless of rules. This is surely an argument for dropping the whole guidelines then? Anyway I agree that attribution error should be unacceptable, the real issue is that it's very hard to point out when someone is making this particular mistake vs. other…
If one is considering it using logic rather than heuristics, yes.
Full conversation is here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27581414
Another funny/ironic part....one of my suggestions was:
> Some sort "cultural mode" for threads of certain kinds, which might include things like "epistemic strictness". So for example, for culture war (politics) threads, it might be interesting to set Epistemic Strictness = High, meaning certain common behaviors would be forbidden, such as asserting imaginary beliefs as facts (mind reading, future reading, etc).
So when dang wholesale dismisses the idea that improvements can be made (essentially, a claim that HN as it is today is 100% optimal), if this claim was made in a thread with "Epistemic Strictness = High", his comment would have violated: Mind Reading, Future Reading, and Omniscience (which I forgot to include in my comment). I simply cannot see how (well, actually, I know exactly how it is done) one could believe that literally disallowing certain types of comments would have zero effect, especially considering (as you say) that we already have guidelines.
Generally speaking, I find it utterly bizarre how resistant people are to the idea that we distinguish between reality and (certain types of) fantasy in our discussions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the author is not exaggerating by suggesting that solving Attribution Error could dramatically change the outcome of human civilisation, but just identifying it as a problem isn't even half the battle. Perhaps the best we can do for now... I used to think that it might be worth a try for forum administrators to define this behavior as unacceptable just like any other unacceptable behavior (racism, snarkines…
Do you have a link to the discussion with @dang? FWIW, I think there's a good chance banning the fundamental attribution error would have no good effects. I think people mostly do it without realizing it's what they're doing. I suspect that when we notice we're doing it, we usually stop it. And the human tendency to defensiveness probably means that if someone else tells us "you're doing this," we'll come up with all…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27581414
I misspoke above, the conversation was much broader, encompassing not just fundamental attribution errors, but ~all errors and imperfections.
> FWIW, I think there's a good chance banning the fundamental attribution error would have no good effects.
It's possible, but it's also possible that it could have good effects - or, sometimes good effects, sometimes none, like most any other of the guidelines.
> And the human tendency to defensiveness probably means that if someone else tells us "you're doing this," we'll come up with all sorts of plausible reasons why we're not.
No doubt about it - once again, you could say the same thing about the other guidelines. My thinking is: just as the existing guidelines can be used as justification for punishment when broken, and set ~aspirations for behavior, is it possible that the list may not be perfect? Might certain other guidelines (or functionality) make HN even better? Dang's claim is that it is not possible, but this is a prediction of the future, and the future is unknown (or so people say, but only sometimes).