Heuristics that almost always work • Hacker News Board

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#431

Post by blunte » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 6:56 AM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #193

lapetitejort wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the reverse of the Gambler's Fallacy? Instead of "The numbers haven't hit in a while, therefore they're going to hit soon." it's "The numbers haven't hit yet, therefore they're never gonna hit."

Also known as complacency. Working in a woodshop, one of the things you are most vulnerable to is failing to respect the danger you're in. This is why many experienced woodworkers have been injured by e.g. a table saw - you stop being as careful after such long exposure.

And why pilots traditionally work from checklists, even if they've done the process thousands of times.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#432

Post by vishnugupta » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 6:57 AM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #30

This story reminded me of a story written by a Czech biologist who studied animals in Papua-New Guinea and went to a hunt with a group of local tribesmen. The dusk was approaching, they were still in the forest and he proposed that they could sleep under a tree. The hunters were adamant in their refusal: no, this is dangerous, a tree might fall on you in your sleep and kill you . He relented, but silently considered…

> for a lifelong hunter, 1:5000 are pretty bad odds

There’s a term for this which I’m unable to recall and it’s not easy to Google. Would greatly appreciate if someone could help me out here!!

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#433

Post by shadowofneptune » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

The doctor example rings true to me, as someone who just graduated from nursing school. Lazy assessments are far more common than we'd like to admit, even to ourselves.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#434

Post by blunte » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

ska wrote: post #153

moralestapia wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you have about 15 months to live Or a few minutes ... or 20 years. That's the thing w/ statistically independent trials.

That's like the difference between You could win 100mm in the lottery (true statement!) Lottery tickets are a good investment (almost always, false statement). Planning on "well it could happen, technically" isn't a good approach.

But when looking at a possible positive outcome, such as the lottery case, it can "make sense" to buy one ticket.

Your chance of winning goes from No Chance to A Chance, which is an infinite improvement.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#435

Post by azinman2 » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 7:02 AM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #432

inglor_cz wrote: post #30

This story reminded me of a story written by a Czech biologist who studied animals in Papua-New Guinea and went to a hunt with a group of local tribesmen. The dusk was approaching, they were still in the forest and he proposed that they could sleep under a tree. The hunters were adamant in their refusal: no, this is dangerous, a tree might fall on you in your sleep and kill you . He relented, but silently considered…

> for a lifelong hunter, 1:5000 are pretty bad odds There’s a term for this which I’m unable to recall and it’s not easy to Google. Would greatly appreciate if someone could help me out here!!

Effectively it’s integrating risk over time, but that’s probably not what you’re thinking of.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#436

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 7:06 AM UTC

threecoins wrote: post #402

This reminds me about an anecdote about how stock market works I heard when I was young. The story goes like, It was autumn, and the Red Indians on the remote reservation asked their New Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Red Indian chief in a modern society, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his Tribe that the winter w…

[deleted]

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#437

Post by Jolter » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 7:12 AM UTC

blunte wrote: post #430

derbOac wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are bold X, and old X, but no old, bold X." Replace X with any practitioners subject to sufficient risk as a result of their practice. I first heard it in the context of mushroom foraging.

There's chance of death, but there's also duration of suffering while dying. I'm guessing that falling from a cliff is "better" than dying from a poisonous mushroom. The latter scares the hell out of me. The former is a glorious ride until the ride is over (regrettably).

I regret to inform you that possible negative outcomes of falling from a cliff include life-long pain, paralysis and brain injury.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#438

Post by thatjoeoverthr » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 7:12 AM UTC

borroka wrote: post #370

hacknat wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you reading the deeper lesson though? The individual examples aren't meant to be authoritative. He was trying to illustrate the very thing you are bringing up. Namely that lazy heuristics create information cascades. The information cascades can have positive effects, as you point out, but they can have profoundly negative consequences, which is the point of the whole article. We shouldn't use or intellectually t…

"On your doctor take, you do know that the other author of this post is a licensed and practicing Physician, right?" -- Your observation is indeed much more interesting than the whole article, since it shows a reasonable (and not a caricature with zero value) heuristic. You are saying that I (who may or may not be a physician, but for argument's sake let's say I am not) should not have an opinion that is different, w…

In other words, your doctor could have been losslessly replaced with a rock that says “apply a steroid cream”, and that heuristic would have harmed you.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#439

Post by lngnmn2 » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 7:20 AM UTC

It is almost rediculous how everything is a subtle bullshit with nice wording.

Yes, neither ivermectin nor hydroxychloroquine had an agent which is relevant at the level of a RNA viruses, a hurricane can be seen long before they are here (unlike earthquakes let's say) and every single social construction, be it a religion or anything of a lesser scale, has distinct patterns and social techniques, such as secrecy, etc.

The world has no miracles, except in Nature, and even those are bounded by the environment.

But, of course, one can get the HN front page these days with such a subtle bullshit.

Re: Heuristics that almost always work

#440

Post by Someone » Wed, Feb 09, 2022, 7:26 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #108

HWR_14 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the mere act of doing it more often dramatically changes the risk. Kind of. However, you already know that the first N outings didn't have a disaster. So those should be discarded from your analysis. Doing it N times more has a lot of risk, doing it the N+1th time has barely any.

If you'll die if a roll of three dice comes up sixes, you're not really in a lot of danger. If you do it every day, you have about 15 months to live.

The expected value will be 6³ = 216 days or about 7 months. Where do you get the factor of two from?

Also, “not really in a lot of danger”? Those odds are worse than that of a 100 year old in the USA (they have a life expectancy of over two years)

Certainly, as an additional risk, it’s high.