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Heuristics that almost always work

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Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#271

Post by ummonk »

josephcsible wrote: post #204
Imnimo wrote: post #188

The flip side of this, is that if the rock is 99.9% right, and the high-minded rationalist is only 99% right, what does that say about the value of his rationality?

What if the rock's errors are all false negatives, the high-minded rationalist's errors are all false positives, and false negatives are 100 times worse than false positives?

The rationalist should still be able to provide unbiased probabilities. How you act on the given probabilities can be informed by the relative costliness of false positives vs. false negatives.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#272

Post by PragmaticPulp »

operator-name wrote: post #95
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #81

This article uses a trope that is frustratingly common in rationalist articles: It sets up over simplified straw-man versions of real world scenarios and then knocks them out of the park. In the real world, a doctor who ignores the complaints of every patients will quickly find themselves the subject of malpractice lawsuits. Not by every wronged patient, but it only takes one or two angry patients with lawyers in the…

I don't think there's the need to take the examples in the article hyper literally. You can call them strawmen if you'd like but simplification for the sake of presenting a point (which you seem to have ignored) is necessary.

> You can call them strawmen if you'd like but simplification for the sake of presenting a point

If you simplify away the parts that make the argument invalid, that's literally the definition of a strawman argument.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#273

Post by PaulHoule »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #181
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.

All of them are missing a big part of the analysis, that it is often not a choice of “a rock” but of a person with a heuristic that works way less than 99.9% of the time. A security guard that constantly harasses shoppers, a “futurist” that buys into every new fad, the conspiracy theorist that believes everything on Facebook. Would anyone really think a weatherman that had say a 70% correct heuristic was good? Or go…

I was thinking of that scene in Modern Times where Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Tramp’ gets hired as a security guard.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#274

Post by Symmetry »

Imnimo wrote: post #188

The flip side of this, is that if the rock is 99.9% right, and the high-minded rationalist is only 99% right, what does that say about the value of his rationality?

You have to ask questions about expected value rather than just accuracy to figure that out.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#275

Post by borroka »

I read them as sloppy caricatures that provide little value to the conversation.

Let's take the security guard: "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."

That is blatantly not true, the guard provide value since the wanna-be robbers don't know whether the guard will be of any value, and a rock could not provide any deterrent. Losslessly?

The doctor (if there is someone skeptical of doctors it is me, if I were less lazy I would have greatly enjoyed fighting to make some useless US dermatologists lose their license): "Her heuristic is right 99.9% of the time, but she provides literally no value. There is no point to her existence. She could be profitably replaced with a rock saying “IT’S NOTHING, TAKE TWO ASPIRIN AND WAIT FOR IT TO GO AWAY”.

This is an unhelpful caricature, too, because if we add "and call back if it does not", it looks like a very reasonable approach.

Un-nuanced and quite sloppy presentation of heuristics.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#277

Post by lifeisstillgood »

The problem here is "the bigger picture". The security guard can improve his heuristic by studying criminology (or rather just talking to other security guards who have been robbed).

what sounds were made, are sounds of the wind different to breaking glass? Have burglaries been on the increase lately? When did he last check the car park was there a suspicious car there?

What I am trying to say is that each of the examples given is really just a strawman - in each case looking for more data - you can spot truth in the data

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#278

Post by nickelpro »

scoofy wrote: post #171
yupper32 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not interesting, it's not introducing anyone to advanced statistics or formal logic, it's not showing any real world uses that can be applied by anyone coming of age. It's just generalized parables by someone not in any of the fields or positions mentioned, some weak conclusions, and a "Heuristics That Almost Always Works" book title.

I mean most people I know that are "very smart people" including myself regularly exercise the cool customer vibe of "yea right, that'll never happen." I think it's a good parable. I mean, it's not really important, and I didn't learn anything, but it's a good reminder that "probably not" is a lot different than "definitely not."

It's only a good parable if you don't follow the author to the conclusion. The heuristics almost always work. Full stop. You should listen to them, because they almost always work. You should not in any case work off the assumption that you're in the 0.01% of the time that the heuristic is wrong.

You will get surprised 0.01% of the time, and that's fine. If you don't follow the heuristic you'll be surprised far more often by way of being wrong.

This gets further weighted by costs. If the cost of a false negative is high and the cost of a false positive is nothing, always assume the positive and do whatever is required: check the window, palpitate the whatever, etc. You are certain it is nothing, but the cost of being wrong is so high that you do it anyway.

The author's whimsical point about needing people who buy into fairy-tales isn't useful or valid. You make these decisions based mostly on the costs of being right and wrong, and within that you assume things based on the stats of occurring.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#279

Post by robbedpeter »

zerocrates wrote: post #232
moralestapia wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All that matters is if an officer feels like fucking up your day. This is what most people don't seem to get. Devices like the ADE 651 or the GT200 were bought by the thousands by law enforcement agencies worldwide, not because they were stupid, but instead, so they could have another "data point" against you that they can use at their discretion. "Sorry, this dot blinked three times so I'm gonna have to detain you:…

What's relevant isn't whether a technology or forensic discipline is good , just whether courts will accept it. Antonin Scalia (in)famously commented in one of the Supreme Court's dog-sniff 4th Amendment cases that obviously the police would want dogs that didn't produce false positive alerts, since they wouldn't want to waste their time searching where there were no drugs. The resulting caselaw sets up a situation w…

Just like McConnell and anti corruption legislation. Nobody in the senate was corrupt, so why in the world would they need rules against corruption?

The flawless logic of our leaders is astonishing.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#280

Post by TeeMassive »

There was a woman who was not a licensed nurse but practiced as one for about 20 years without troubles until she got caught trying to subscribe to a mandatory course and they couldn't find her professional order ID.

I'd go as far as saying 90% the resources spent on learning and teaching are entirely wasted and could be done away with.

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