@alexandrosM @EricsElectrons Just finished reading. It’s well written and argued, thank you for writing! My thoughts: @alexandrosM @EricsElectrons I share your impression that, from his tweets, GidMK does not seem like a sufficiently objective source that I’d feel comfortable simply deferring to his judgment about which studies to trust

I feel really grateful for people who take the trouble to provide what I think of as “services to the epistemic commons,” contributions that make our collective maps more accurate

A thread of some examples: 1. People who uncover errors or fraud in science


Example: The anonymous researchers who discovered fraud in that famous Dan Ariely paper datacolada.org/98

I've seen this claim in a bunch of places -- that Norway's prisons work better than ours, because their recidivism rate is only 20% compared to our 76.6% recidivism

I looked into it and... it's not accurate The 20% stat in Norway is measuring the % of people who were re-sentenced within 2 years

The 76.6% stat in the US is measuring the % of people who were *re-arrested* within *5 years*

That's not comparable at all!

I finally read @ezraklein's book "Why We're Polarized," and really enjoyed it!

Ezra came on my podcast to discuss his model of how Republicans & Democrats became so ideologically & demographically different over the years

Audio + transcript:
rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/260-why-were-p… One useful takeaway for me was just teasing apart a bunch of related phenomena so we can think more clearly

1. Opinion polarization: People becoming more strongly PRO or CON on an issue
2. Sorting: The PRO people going to one party, the CON people going to another party
...

My recent tweet mentioning Dragonlance sparked a big nostalgia-fest in the comments, so I thought you all might appreciate a funny anecdote about the books.

Thread: Last weekend was my brother @jessegalef's wedding to @donovanable, and as wedding favors they gave out books they loved / books that had influenced their life

One of the books was Dragons of Autumn Twilight so of COURSE that's the one I chose to take home with me

Earlier this year I did a podcast with @mattyglesias in which he argued for boosting the US’s population to 1 billion (via immigration & increased birth rates). And that this was worth doing even though it would worsen climate change.

(LINK: rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/251-the-case-f…) Since that episode, I’ve gotten a number of annoyed emails objecting that Matt is wrong and explaining to me that climate change is really bad.

The problem I have with the objections is that...

A little story about finding common ground in unexpected ways:

Last month @lukeprog and I were in central PA and ended up hanging out with an Amish couple (we had watched a documentary on them which piqued our curiosity, so we reached out to ask if they'd be up for chatting) They invited us to their farmhouse. So we're sitting in their kitchen, talking to them about their lives and beliefs, and we're having a great time and hitting it off really well... and then they ask us "So what are your religious beliefs?"

1/ I've noticed that a lot of people who pride themselves on being "rigorous" or "critical thinkers" have this simple heuristic that anecdotes = weak evidence.

But I disagree! It depends on what claim those anecdotes are being used to support. 2/ For example, in one chapter of my book I tell a few anecdotes of successful leaders who express uncertainty (e.g. Jeff Bezos saying "Amazon has a 30% chance of success")

BROKE: Not citing studies
WOKE: Citing lots of studies
BESPOKE: Not citing studies, because actually it turns out they're all bad (from @benjwallace's profile of me) nymag.com/intelligencer/…

1/ My fiancé and I have been living out of AirBnBs for the last nine months and it's just insane how much better it is than renting from a landlord 2/ You can actually read reviews of the place before you rent! The host has a strong incentive to address your questions and concerns! If it sucks, you don't have to stay very long! (Though it's never actually sucked)

1/ There's something that bugs me about the "virtue signaling" discourse, which goes like this

GROUP A: "Ugh, those people are virtue signaling -- they're just saying that stuff to seem like good people"

GROUP B: "What's wrong with wanting to show you're a good person??" 2/ And what bugs me is that Group B seems to be ignoring the key premise of Group A's critique - that the virtue-signalers *don't really believe* the stuff they're saying.

Group A may be wrong about that (I often think they are), but still, that's the crux of their complaint.

1/ Hey guys, I’m excited to announce my first book is coming out April 13!

It’s about something I call “scout mindset” - the motivation to see things as they are, not as you wish they were; to be intellectually honest & curious about what's actually true

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555240/t… 2/ The central metaphor of the book is that we’re often in “soldier mindset,” motivated to defend our ideas against threatening evidence or arguments. And scout mindset is an alternative to that - a scout’s goal isn’t to defend, but to go out and get an accurate map of reality.

1/ My pitch for a TV show: A pair of brilliant & eccentric detectives travel around the world consulting on unusual cases

Each story arc is ~6 episodes long and takes place in a different beautiful or interesting setting: A research base in the Galapagos... 2/ ... a cozy town in the English countryside; the crowded streets of Bangkok; a closed industrial city in Siberia like Novilsk; etc.

So you'd get to be immersed in a different place, and a different cast of characters, every couple of months...

I'm confused about the "Is an engineer making $150K a year rich?" debate, which goes

"Of course $150K = rich, it's much higher than the median"

"But $150K doesn't go as far in a city like SF"

"Living in SF is a luxury good. Making that choice doesn't mean you're not rich"
... But it's not like the engineer gets $150K and *then* chooses where to live. The $150K is more or less conditional on living in an expensive city like SF

(And yes, you can live far out & commute. But *if you want to live near your job* that costs a lot more in SF than elsewhere)

LOL at this kid responding to one of his critics 😄

(From the Youtube comments on a community theater production of something called "Tarzan, the stage musical" ) There's just something about people cheerfully agreeing with their critics that I find so charming.

Actually, this is how I met one of my Facebook friends...

Thanks for the input yesterday on quote tweets!

My main takeaway -- aside from “don’t be a jerk / don’t just preach to the choir”, which I was already trying to practice -- is that I should maybe do something like the following (cont.)...

https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1358511087600234498

When I want to quote-tweet & disagree with someone, instead I could start a thread like this:
(1/n) “I often see people arguing X, but here’s why I think that’s wrong: [explain]”
(n/n) “… Here’s an example of someone saying X: [quote tweet]”

Just remembered how my brother @JesseGalef delightfully organized his books according to Harry Potter houses

(or rather, the steel-manned, rationality-focused versions of Harry Potter houses)

jessegalef.com/2013/03/18/wha… The RAVENCLAW shelf is where he keeps his books on philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and math

Another way to explain my point last night:

Suppose you give your class a test you think is reasonable, but most people flunk. You would update: "I guess these problems aren't as easy as I thought, for students at this level"

My point: Same thing holds for tests of character. If 90% of the world fails your test of willpower, compassion, self-awareness, altruism, etc., you should update: "I guess this is actually not an easy thing for humans to do"
-- even if it feels to you like it "should" be easy

One underappreciated difference in worldviews:

When judging other people's virtue (or lack thereof), do you grade on a curve?

For me it's "yes" - I think it's almost-by-definition impossible for 90% of the population to be horrible people Whereas by contrast, I notice many others will deem a person horrible for holding a view that's held by, like, 90% the country

... which requires you to believe that 90% of the population are horrible people

... which to me doesn't really make sense

There are some great fusion cuisines like Indian-Chinese, and Peruvian-Japanese, which resulted naturally from proximity or immigration.

But I feel like we've only scratched the surface of amazing cuisine mashups possible!

What cuisines would pair well together? Some proposals: #1: MEXICAN + THAI: Both cuisines feature chilis, lime, & dishes balancing cooked meats with fresh, raw condiments, which makes it easy to plug 'n play. Think red curry duck tacos topped with a papaya slaw. Or larb quesadillas!

@mattyglesias @lastpositivist @Noahpinion Not that you asked me, but "rationalists" today mean roughly this:
- Some methods of forming judgments are better than others at giving you accurate beliefs
(this is context-dependent, ofc)
- We are in favor of whatever those methods are
- We have some guesses about what they are @mattyglesias @lastpositivist @Noahpinion And one of those methods might be "Trust your intuition in context X, but be skeptical of it in context Y"

Another method might be "Notice your emotional reactions and try to figure out if they're indicative of information you were ignoring"