4 ms·

A safety signal set off by comedians (eg, Tim Minchin) but that fails to detect serial killers seems anything but "meaningful". It's just noise. It actually so

A safety signal set off by comedians (eg, Tim Minchin) but that fails to detect serial killers seems anything but "meaningful". It's just noise. It actually sounds like a cognitive fault where an old instinct (that used to be useful) is counterproductive in the modern world. Coddling that behavior leads us (pretty much invariably) to tragedy.

throwanem 10y ago
Do you think it's possible that serial killers, deliberately or otherwise, send an intentionally false signal in order to disguise the danger they present? I think it's possible.
- delinka 10y ago
  Therefore, no signals sent in public by anyone should ever be trusted from now until eternity. Ergo, off to jail with you if you shouldn't want to explain in detail your actions of the day, no, of the week that lead up to this moment, along with corroborating proof and witnesses, because I just can't trust that air of sadness/indifference/joviality about you.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    I'm not sure what claim you're arguing against, but I'm quite sure it's not one I've made.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Well of course it is. But again, a "signal" with a high false-positive rate (eg, most people not wearing shoes pose no threat) and false-negative rate (eg, most criminals, especially the dangerous ones wear shoes) is not a good or meaningful signal. You can't make reliable predictions of danger from it, while attempting to distracts from more useful signals and gives us false confidence. So not only does it not reveal danger, it gives us false confidence we can reliably detect danger, making us more vulnerable to real danger (eg, serial killers). The instinct was likely useful as primitive humans (eg, preferring our species or pack to other species or packs), but likely is a detriment in modern society.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    So is our default habit of eating extra when we have an immediate surplus, because it may save our lives when times are lean. Now that there's effectively always a surplus, that's a great way to get fat. It's also how humans work, and it is worth bearing in mind in discussions like these that our entire recorded history has yet to recount any evolutionary meaningful period of time. Confusing how humans in modern society ideally should work, with how humans actually do work, leads nowhere productive that I've ever seen.
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      I don't disagree, but my point was regardless of why we're prone to it, it's a behavior with a net negative, and not to be encouraged. The comment I was originally replying to implied that it was a useful or meaningful signal. It's not, it's a detrimental evolutionary holdover we should (attempt to) train ourselves to ignore. Much like the behaviors that lead to obesity.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        If it were possible to draw a clear line between "primitive human" and "non-primitive human", I might agree. But it's not. Perhaps one day it will be, but that day has yet to come, and the smartest, cleverest, most capable Mark One plains ape is a Mark One plains ape nonetheless. Imagining oneself otherwise seems like a sure path to regret. Perhaps one day, too, there will exist a human or posthuman being of sufficient perceptive, cognitive, and mnemonic capacity to understand how our species and our societies work in sufficient detail and completeness to usefully contemplate its directed modification. That day also has yet to come, and judging by the results of those attempts at social engineering our histories document, I'd have to say that to suggest any such course of action is, in the most charitable interpretation, an expression of optimism very far beyond the possible. Until such a day arrives - and I suspect we'll know it when it does - I might make so bold as to opine that a much more productive avenue for our efforts would instead be to perceive and understand how our species and our societies actually do work, with an eye toward optimizing our own behavior toward whatever goal we find best suits us, while not making ourselves so intolerable to our fellows that opprobrium becomes condign. Granted, this requires not only humility but the total abandonment of faith in human perfectibility and all other such nonsense beliefs - neither of which changes is terribly palatable at first blush. I have, though, in my experiments thus far toward modeling my own behavior after this apparently heterodox ideal, observed the results to be quite strongly beneficial in my own case, and to the limit of my perceptual ability, in the cases of those who regularly interact with me as well. Perhaps others might observe a similar result.

throwanem 10y ago

Do you think it's possible that serial killers, deliberately or otherwise, send an intentionally false signal in order to disguise the danger they present? I think it's possible.

delinka 10y ago
Therefore, no signals sent in public by anyone should ever be trusted from now until eternity. Ergo, off to jail with you if you shouldn't want to explain in detail your actions of the day, no, of the week that lead up to this moment, along with corroborating proof and witnesses, because I just can't trust that air of sadness/indifference/joviality about you.
- throwanem 10y ago
  I'm not sure what claim you're arguing against, but I'm quite sure it's not one I've made.
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Well of course it is. But again, a "signal" with a high false-positive rate (eg, most people not wearing shoes pose no threat) and false-negative rate (eg, most criminals, especially the dangerous ones wear shoes) is not a good or meaningful signal. You can't make reliable predictions of danger from it, while attempting to distracts from more useful signals and gives us false confidence. So not only does it not reveal danger, it gives us false confidence we can reliably detect danger, making us more vulnerable to real danger (eg, serial killers). The instinct was likely useful as primitive humans (eg, preferring our species or pack to other species or packs), but likely is a detriment in modern society.
- throwanem 10y ago
  So is our default habit of eating extra when we have an immediate surplus, because it may save our lives when times are lean. Now that there's effectively always a surplus, that's a great way to get fat. It's also how humans work, and it is worth bearing in mind in discussions like these that our entire recorded history has yet to recount any evolutionary meaningful period of time. Confusing how humans in modern society ideally should work, with how humans actually do work, leads nowhere productive that I've ever seen.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I don't disagree, but my point was regardless of why we're prone to it, it's a behavior with a net negative, and not to be encouraged. The comment I was originally replying to implied that it was a useful or meaningful signal. It's not, it's a detrimental evolutionary holdover we should (attempt to) train ourselves to ignore. Much like the behaviors that lead to obesity.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      If it were possible to draw a clear line between "primitive human" and "non-primitive human", I might agree. But it's not. Perhaps one day it will be, but that day has yet to come, and the smartest, cleverest, most capable Mark One plains ape is a Mark One plains ape nonetheless. Imagining oneself otherwise seems like a sure path to regret. Perhaps one day, too, there will exist a human or posthuman being of sufficient perceptive, cognitive, and mnemonic capacity to understand how our species and our societies work in sufficient detail and completeness to usefully contemplate its directed modification. That day also has yet to come, and judging by the results of those attempts at social engineering our histories document, I'd have to say that to suggest any such course of action is, in the most charitable interpretation, an expression of optimism very far beyond the possible. Until such a day arrives - and I suspect we'll know it when it does - I might make so bold as to opine that a much more productive avenue for our efforts would instead be to perceive and understand how our species and our societies actually do work, with an eye toward optimizing our own behavior toward whatever goal we find best suits us, while not making ourselves so intolerable to our fellows that opprobrium becomes condign. Granted, this requires not only humility but the total abandonment of faith in human perfectibility and all other such nonsense beliefs - neither of which changes is terribly palatable at first blush. I have, though, in my experiments thus far toward modeling my own behavior after this apparently heterodox ideal, observed the results to be quite strongly beneficial in my own case, and to the limit of my perceptual ability, in the cases of those who regularly interact with me as well. Perhaps others might observe a similar result.