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Daniel Kahneman has died

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Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#71

Post by kbenson »

mistermann wrote: post #54
btilly wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The density of non-replicable results varies by chapter. You can ignore anything said in chapter 4 about priming for example. See https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-pe... for more.

A fun question especially considering the topic of the thread : are propositions that lack proof necessarily false?

A very good point (I'm not sure if it's relevant to the book in question, as I haven't read it or if you're referring just about the conversation so far). It seems like many people will take a strong claim they are dubious about, and on finding the evidence is sparse, inconclusive, or missing, swing to assuming that statement is false, instead of a more neutral position of "I have no opinion or some reason to think is unlikely, but others think it is unlikely even if poorly supported or unsupported."

This tendency seems to be capitalized on fairly heavily in political media by finding some poorly supported assertion of the other side to criticize, which causes people to assume the opposite is true.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#72

Post by arrowsmith »

paulpauper wrote: post #50
cvwright wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that most nonfiction books follow a common structure: * 1st third of the book: Lays out the basic ideas, gives several examples * 2nd third of the book: More examples that repeat the themes from the 1st part * 3rd third of the book: ??? I usually give up at this point I sometimes wish that more books were like "The Mom Test" - just long enough to say what they need, even if that makes for a short book.

I sometimes wish that more books were like "The Mom Test" - just long enough to say what they need, even if that makes for a short book. most non fiction could be well-summarized as a lengthy blog post

I'd go further: many non-fiction books could be losslessly compressed into a tweet.

(Looking at you, The Checklist Manifesto)

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#73

Post by olvy0 »

voisin wrote: post #46
cvwright wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that most nonfiction books follow a common structure: * 1st third of the book: Lays out the basic ideas, gives several examples * 2nd third of the book: More examples that repeat the themes from the 1st part * 3rd third of the book: ??? I usually give up at this point I sometimes wish that more books were like "The Mom Test" - just long enough to say what they need, even if that makes for a short book.

Because most nonfiction books are one, relatively small set of ideas (profound or not, novel or not) that could be concisely written as a few blog posts or a single long form article, but in order to monetize and build the author’s brand, get exaggerated into a full book. It is really painful and something I hope GPT will help the rest of us cut through in the future (“summarize the points. Dig into that point. What…

That's exacerbating the original environmental problem, in addition to thick paper books, filled with filler material just to promote the author's brand, you now want to waste electricity on running an LLM that will give you a the short version? That's.... short sighted.

This should be dealt with by pressuring the publishing industry not to inflate books and fill them with fluff. This could be done by not buying these kind of books, and publicly shaming publishers who engage in this behavior. It's easier in non fiction books since the amount of fluff in fiction books is a more subjective matter.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#74

Post by arrowsmith »

mgfist wrote: post #47

Feel like I'm the only one who couldn't get through Thinking, Fast and Slow. Felt like a rambling slog, with most of the interesting bits being something that was very common sense to me.

I had the same reaction tbh. I managed to get to the end, but it was a slow, tedious slog. And maybe it's because I'd already read a lot of other pop-psych books, but I barely felt like I learned anything new from it.

That aside, I don't doubt that Kahneman was a brilliant mind, and I'm saddened by his passing. RIP.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#75

Post by paulolc »

localhost wrote: post #61
btilly wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The density of non-replicable results varies by chapter. You can ignore anything said in chapter 4 about priming for example. See https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-pe... for more.

This is exactly the kind of task that I want to deploy a long context window model on: "rewrite Thinking Fast and Slow taking into account the current state of research. Oh, and do it in the voice, style and structure of Tim Urban complete with crappy stick figure drawings."

Awesome prompt!

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#76

Post by geodel »

voisin wrote: post #46
cvwright wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that most nonfiction books follow a common structure: * 1st third of the book: Lays out the basic ideas, gives several examples * 2nd third of the book: More examples that repeat the themes from the 1st part * 3rd third of the book: ??? I usually give up at this point I sometimes wish that more books were like "The Mom Test" - just long enough to say what they need, even if that makes for a short book.

Because most nonfiction books are one, relatively small set of ideas (profound or not, novel or not) that could be concisely written as a few blog posts or a single long form article, but in order to monetize and build the author’s brand, get exaggerated into a full book. It is really painful and something I hope GPT will help the rest of us cut through in the future (“summarize the points. Dig into that point. What…

Well, life of most people on the earth is just same boring repetitions with few novel events. So I wonder what would people do with their ample amount of saved time thanks to ChatGPT. Perhaps writing another Javascript framework, launch new food delivery apps besides raging on social media.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#78

Post by ipsum2 »

mattpavelle wrote: post #65

For those who don't know who he is: Professor Kahneman, who was long associated with Princeton University and lived in Manhattan, employed his training as a psychologist to advance what came to be called behavioral economics. The work, done largely in the 1970s, led to a rethinking of issues as far-flung as medical malpractice, international political negotiations and the evaluation of baseball talent, all of which h…

All of this is in the article.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#79

Post by underdeserver »

zug_zug wrote: post #15
mistercow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth noting that many of the results in Thinking, Fast and Slow didn’t hold up to replication. It’s still very much worth reading in its own right, but now implicitly comes bundled with a game I like to call “calibrate yourself on the replication crisis”. Playing is simple: every time the book mentions a surprising result, try to guess whether it replicated. Then search online to see if you got it right.

Yeah I wouldn't read too much into any single study. But what I would defend vigorously is System1 / System2 distinction as something so clear/fundamental that you can see it constantly once you understand it.

In software we often call it fastpath and slowpath :)

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#80

Post by [deleted] »

zug_zug wrote: post #15
mistercow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth noting that many of the results in Thinking, Fast and Slow didn’t hold up to replication. It’s still very much worth reading in its own right, but now implicitly comes bundled with a game I like to call “calibrate yourself on the replication crisis”. Playing is simple: every time the book mentions a surprising result, try to guess whether it replicated. Then search online to see if you got it right.

Yeah I wouldn't read too much into any single study. But what I would defend vigorously is System1 / System2 distinction as something so clear/fundamental that you can see it constantly once you understand it.

[deleted]
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