LESSWRONG

bbleeker

Apr 6, 2016

59 comments

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
Post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

1 points

bbleeker

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James_Miller

18 points

When one person doesn't understand economics, we call it ignorance. When millions don't, we call it a political movement.

Scott Adams

18 points

username2

3 points

Some people political movements prioritize other stuff, but you can't get elected by saying that you don't care about the economy, it would be a political suicide. Therefore they claim that by a happy coincidence their ideas about the stuff they prioritize and economics prescribe the same solutions.

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0 points

Economics is about more than just the economy. It's generally about how people react to incentives. If you look at feminism equal pay is quite high on their list of priorities.

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Daniel_Burfoot

10 points

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

-- John le Carre

10 points

parabarbarian

6 points

Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men. The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth.

-- Robert A Heinlein. Assignment in Eternity, Loc 939 (Kindle edition)

6 points

gjm

3 points

I guess we'll just have to rely on all those people with perfect brains, then.

I can predict with great confidence that those people will not make any mistakes.

(They will not do anything else, either.)

3 points

NancyLebovitz

2 points

http://wearecolorblind.com/article/oxy-iso-glasses-review/

It turns out that a lot of color blind people can see their difficult colors a little bit, and technological aid helps.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-eyewear-could-help-people-with-red-green-color-blindness/

They don't seem to help (most?) people as much of the more enthusiastic early reviews said, but aren't totally useless, either.

2 points

bbleeker

2 points

So it helps them to be less wrong, as it were.

2 points

NancyLebovitz

0 points

You're right. I've corrected it. Thank you

Oops. That was a reply to a PM about a typo.

0 points

Vamair0

1 points

There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth.

There is no point to this "rationality" project anymore, everybody can go home.

1 points

Lumifer

0 points

There is no point to this "rationality" project anymore

Project? Which project?

0 points

Vamair0

0 points

Improving epistemic rationality, at least. Better thinking through understanding our mind's flaws. I don't think anyone here has a "perfect brain". Maybe it's possible to improve instrumental rationality while having no way to distinguish lies from truth, but it would probably be a random walk.

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NancyLebovitz

0 points

Which story is that? I'm betting on "Gulf".

0 points

parabarbarian

0 points

And you would be correct.

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AlexanderRM

5 points

"He who builds his cart behind closed gates will find it not suited to the tracks outside the gates."

-Unattributed (Chinese) proverb, quoted by Chen Duxiu in "Call to Youth" 1915.

5 points

27chaos

3 points

But the thought is one thing, the deed is another, and another yet is the image of the deed. The wheel of causality does not roll between them.

Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.

3 points

elharo

3 points

What science gets wrong, more science sets right. (What religion gets wrong, by way of contrast, more religion rarely sets right.)

-- Dan Savage, American Savage, p. 152

3 points

2 points

Martin Seligman’s view that authentic happiness comes from using your character strengths makes sense to me. For example, it seems reasonable to expect that activities that would bring lasting happiness to a person whose strengths are curiosity, love of learning and zest would differ from those that would bring lasting happiness to one whose strengths are kindness, fairness and a forgiving nature, or to one whose strengths are judgement, perseverance and leadership. (In his book ‘Authentic Happiness’, Seligman identifies 24 strengths under the general headings: wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity and love, justice, temperance and transcendence.)

-Rejection sensitivity: http://www.psychologyineverydaylife.net/2013/03/17/rejection-sensitivity-three-ways-to-toughen-up/

2 points

Romashka

2 points

Nature is full of wonders, but the wonders of the reporter's imagination so far outstrip the wonders of nature, that as a people, we still prefer the reporter's version. The best selling popular science is that in which animals think, act and often talk, exactly like human beings, and in which plants are endowed with instincts that properly belong to animals alone. Instances are so abundant in the lay press that scientific publications no longer take notice of them, but when a publication devoted to science publishes such stories for the truth, it is time someone pointed out their falsity.

Some Plant Myths, The American Botanist, v 9 #1, 1905

2 points

2 points

If there is going to be a government role in getting innovation started, people have to believe philosophically that it’s possible to plan.

Peter Thiel

2 points

AlexanderRM

0 points

Interesting: He makes the argument that progress in physical areas of technology (transportation, chemistry etc.) has slowed in part due to government regulation (which would explain why the computers and the internet have been the one thing progressing drastically). But the United States has never been the source of all or even the majority of the worlds' new inventions, so an explanation focused on the U.S. government can't fill that large a gap (although, I suppose a slowdown of 1/3rd or even more would be explained).

Any information on what the situation has been in other countries? I wouldn't be surprised if the entire First World has trended towards drastically more regulation, which would indeed leave only the places with fewer inventors and little capital to invest or consumer-money to spend able to experiment with technologies in those fields (if true, the implications for the chance of changing the situation aren't as bright as if it's just the United States). Still, this is something that has to be remembered in any discussion of technology, or for that matter any questions of this type. More generally there seems to be a general lack of tendency (among Americans at least) to check on or be aware of other countries in all sorts of questions, and the few times they are brought up it's usually a single anecdote to reinforce the speakers' point (but even these are less common than one would expect). That seems to be a serious impediment to actually figuring out problems.

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If you look at the area of transportation innovation in trains does happen outside of the US. Japan manages to build better trains over time and even our European trains are better than those trains of the past. There a general thought that Detroit did worse than German or Japanese carmakers.

In general Europe has also seen an increase in regulation. Europe outlawed GMO's. Germany banned nuclear plants. German culture is often even more critical of new technology than the US.

0 points

negamuhia

1 points

What reaches your attention when you see is not ‘reality’ but a mix of light measurements with cryptotheories that were useful for making snap judgments in the environment of ancestral adaptation.

Eric S. Raymond here: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7076

1 points

1 points

The Hidden Emotion Model is based on the idea that niceness is the cause of all anxiety. People who are prone to anxiety are nearly always people-pleasers who fear conflict and negative feelings like anger. When you feel upset, you sweep your problems under the rug because you don’t want to upset anyone. You do this so quickly and automatically that you’re not even aware you’re doing it. Then your negative feelings resurface in disguised form, as anxiety, worries, fears, or feelings of panic. When you expose the hidden feelings and solve the problem that’s bugging you, often your anxiety will disappear

David D. Burns in "When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life-Broadway"

1 points

Fyrius

3 points

based on the idea that niceness is the cause of all anxiety.

All anxiety? Surely not. People get anxious about exams and going to the dentist and mortgages and impending wars and loads of other stuff that hasn't got squat to do with this particular behaviour. That's so obvious that nobody would make their model that absurdly broad.

I think what the author wanted to say was "based on the idea that there exists a psychological pattern that leads to anxiety and is caused by niceness."

(Just nitpicking bad writing here, but it has to be said.)

3 points

0 points

I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to face a zombie, especially one that ate me last time I played, I’m going to want more than one bullet, and I’m going to want to fire them from range instead of waiting until he’s within brain-smelling distance. I’m going to hack motivation way more than I expect I’ll need to, and I’m going to do it up front when I’m feeling most excited about my goal. I’ll precommit, I’ll burn ships, I’ll create a motivation-only environment, I’ll start self-tracking to keep myself honest, I’ll find ways to make it more fun, and I’ll precommit some more.

Nick Winter in The Motivation Hacker

0 points

Lumifer

0 points

a zombie, especially one that ate me last time

So, you are taking your motivation cues from zombies?

X-D

0 points

0 points

‘High neuroticism scorers will always be vulnerable to negative thoughts and feelings. That they cannot change. However, there are techniques in which they can train themselves that seem to have quite a marked effect on how they deal with this vulnerability, which can make a great deal of difference to their being in the world'

-‘Happiness’, 2005: 113

0 points

27chaos

0 points

Like what?

0 points

1 points

If I knew, I probably wouldn't post so much.

1 points

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In the second half of the therapy work moves into the Revision phase, where patient and therapist identify and practice "exits" from the procedural diagram established in the previous phase. For example, a problematic procedure might move a patient from feeling angry to taking an overdose. An exit might involve expressing the anger in some way as an alternative to self-injuring behaviour.

Wikipedia: Cognitive Analytic Therapy

0 points