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Heuristics that almost always work

astralcodexten.substack.com

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Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#51

Post by soheil »

PaulHoule wrote: post #7
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #4

>The only problem is: he now provides literally no value. He’s excluded by fiat the possibility of ever being useful in any way. He could be losslessly replaced by a rock with the words “THERE ARE NO ROBBERS” on it except for the value of having a security guard visible so that 99% of the robbers who might conceivably want to rob a Pillow Mart decide to go rob Quilting Heaven down the road instead.

Instead of a rock you just need an inflatable security guard. What's frightening about all this is that this article has gotten 15 upvotes despite 100% of the comments so far being about what a pointless article this is.

Are you saying 15 votes isn't a lot? Also 100% of 2 comments is still 100% of the comments.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#52

Post by efitz »

A big straw man.

In real life some people are more or less diligent about their jobs, and more or less contrarian, and have different expertise, strengths and weaknesses.

Each of the vignettes portrays the counter position as stupid (literally using a rock as a metaphor).

The reality is much different. In each of the cases there’s an argument to be made that the proposition was flawed- the security guard never finds anything but instead of just not looking anymore, maybe they propose installation of cameras. The volcanologists aren’t very helpful if they don’t have predictive value - if they are always waffling then they are no more useful than the rock cult. And if they are over-activated, then they run the risk of “boy who cried wolf” or of being dismissed because too frequent false positives cost the rest of the society too much.

Overall I think the essay is shallow and not a useful treatment of the subject.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#53

Post by ravi-delia »

PaulHoule wrote: post #25
MattGaiser wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People mostly seem to object to the security guard example as missing a part of the analysis.

I suspect a lot of them are stopping when they see that when is bogus and aren't bothering to poke holes in the rest of them. Readers have their own heuristics, but that doesn't mean the rest of the examples aren't full of holes.

It's really not about several examples of the same thing, but interrogating our intuitions around each one. I at least found I felt differently about different heuristics being replaced by rocks.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#54

Post by Corence »

PaulHoule wrote: post #6

You'd do a lot better with one strong example rather than seven weak examples. For instance, if you are interested in Bayes Theorem like a lot of rationalists say they are, you could talk about the medical test which is 99.99% accurate but for which 90% of the positives are false positives.

Fortunately I have a rock that says "the next example will make the same point as the example I just read" so I saved a bunch of time.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#56

Post by guyzero »

This essay, but not ironically.

If you think you have something that no one else in the world has noticed, you're probably wrong. You're going to need a LOT of evidence to prove yourself right. Lots of people & companies spend years, decades even, proving themselves right. You're not going to do it overnight and you're not going to do it with a wikipedia article.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#57

Post by AlexCoventry »

jppope wrote: post #2

One of the amazing subtleties in this article... if you're a fast reader you'll stop paying attention to the stories as they go through... kind of amazing that this article is layered like that.

I developed a rock inside my head, and the rock said "THESE PEOPLE WILL ALL FALL AFOUL OF RIGID DICTATES WRITTEN ON A ROCK."

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#58

Post by tablespoon »

> The Futurist

> He comments on the latest breathless press releases from tech companies. This will change everything! say the press releases. “No it won’t”, he comments. This is the greatest invention ever to exist! say the press releases. “It’s a scam,” he says.

He's got the name backwards on this one. What he's describing is more of an anti-futurist. IMHO, futurists and the ones that make implausibly grand predictions about the future that almost always end up not being true.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#60

Post by PaulHoule »

kqr wrote: post #44
kbuchanan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great example. This is the very reason I have scaled back the amount of time I rock climb as I've gotten older -- not because any individual outing is dangerous, but there's an element of Russian roulette wherein the mere act of doing it more often dramatically changes the risk.

Also known as the Kelly criterion. If one possible outcome of an action is associated with a great enough loss, it doesn't make sense to perform the action no matter how unlikely the loss.

No, Kelly is about what fraction of your bankroll you should bet if you want to maximize your rate of return for a bet with variable odds.

It's essential if you want to:

* make money by counting cards at Blackjack (the odds are a function of how many 10 cards are left in the deck)

* make money at the racetrack with a system like this https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Beat-Racetrack-William-Ziemba/dp/0...

* turn a predictive model for financial prices into a profitable trading system

In the case where the bet loses money you can interpret Kelly as either "the only way to win is not to play" or "bet it all on Red exactly once and walk away " depending on how you take the limit.

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