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The trend I'm seeing is to immediately defend self-driving cars based on "but if you look at it statistically I'm willing to bet this is better than human drive

by apeace 9y ago

The trend I'm seeing is to immediately defend self-driving cars based on "but if you look at it statistically I'm willing to bet this is better than human drivers". It is as if HN users expect the news headline to be: "an event occurs which is statistically speaking non-anomalous". If one doesn't feel we have enough data to draw conclusions yet, then sure, fine. But a person just died. This is a newsworthy story and it deserves our best attention and discussion, not repetition of something obvious ad nauseam.

dang 9y ago
The root problem is that that there isn't enough specific new information to slow down the discussion and make it substantial. Lacking that, people recycle the generic points. Meanwhile the story is a dramatic one, so the energy to discuss it is high. That's a double whammy: lots of energy driving the gears, but no grist to slow them down. This produces reams of commodity comments. I'm sure the story being at #1 amplifies the effect, too, so it's a triple whammy. But it doesn't make sense for the story not to be there. When the sensational-to-informational ratio is so large, we always get this.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > The root problem is that that there isn't enough specific new information to slow down the discussion and make it substantial. Lacking that, people recycle the generic points. Is there a term for this tendency? Curious to read the research on it.
  - dang 9y ago
    It would be great to have just the right term for it, because then there would be a better chance of the community absorbing the idea, and that kind of feedback loop is the only thing that can alter behavior. So far I don't know of one. I use the distinctions 'specific vs. generic' and 'reflective vs. reflexive' in moderation discussions a lot, but those don't quite cut it. Alan Kay pointed out that Kahnemann's slow-system vs. fast-system also applies here.
    - scoggs 9y ago
      I hereby propose the Dang Double Whammy Effect.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - sowbug 9y ago
    "Bikeshedding" should cover it if there isn't a more specific term. If not, then bikeshedding will.
SilasX 9y ago
I still don't understand what specifically you're objecting to (at least I think I don't). As best I can tell, you don't disagree with the points about statistics but think the discussion is somehow "without compassion", which stops it from being "our best discussion". Do I understand you correctly that you'd be okay with the comments if the were just prefixed with some "thoughts-and-prayers" genuflection? And if so, why not say it directly?
- apeace 9y ago
  I think dang described it best here [1] It's not the lack of compassion, it's the lack of substance. And I suppose it strikes me as lacking compassion and/or humility to come and use HN as a platform to recycle the same obvious idea, when the story is about a death. It would be different if it were about a tire blowing out. Everyone knows how these statistics work on a macro level. That's not worth commenting here on HN, and especially not on this story. I just think we could do better. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621716
  - SilasX 9y ago
    I read dang's comment before posting. It still didn't help -- I can't come up with a mental model that generalizes the criticism into actionable rules for improved discussion (except as noted below). >Everyone knows how these statistics work on a macro level. That's not worth commenting here on HN, and especially not on this story. If statistical comparisons were obvious, and people didn't overreact with unjustifiable countermeasures, then indeed it wouldn't be important to make the point. But the world we live in is one where nuclear deaths are scarier than heart disease deaths, and shark attacks more than auto collisions. I think you're committing the fallacy of "my social circle doesn't make that mistake, therefore it's not worth pointing out." I can agree that users should be more careful about making the common point when others have made it, though -- I had a reply on this thread about "Uber flouted the $150 license" that I deleted when I saw others made a more informed response to the same point.
smallgovt 9y ago
>> not repetition of something obvious ad nauseam. The fact that Uber's self-driving car program has a worse deaths-per-miles-driven metric than human drivers is anything but obvious to me. After an incident like this, it's natural to question whether anything needs to be done policy-wise. And, I don't see any reason why that discussion can't take place here in the comments section. It seems like you want HN users to use the comments section to express condolences? Or, to just have an empty comments section?

by apeace 9y ago

dang 9y ago

The root problem is that that there isn't enough specific new information to slow down the discussion and make it substantial. Lacking that, people recycle the generic points. Meanwhile the story is a dramatic one, so the energy to discuss it is high. That's a double whammy: lots of energy driving the gears, but no grist to slow them down. This produces reams of commodity comments. I'm sure the story being at #1 amplifies the effect, too, so it's a triple whammy. But it doesn't make sense for the story not to be there. When the sensational-to-informational ratio is so large, we always get this.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> The root problem is that that there isn't enough specific new information to slow down the discussion and make it substantial. Lacking that, people recycle the generic points. Is there a term for this tendency? Curious to read the research on it.
- dang 9y ago
  It would be great to have just the right term for it, because then there would be a better chance of the community absorbing the idea, and that kind of feedback loop is the only thing that can alter behavior. So far I don't know of one. I use the distinctions 'specific vs. generic' and 'reflective vs. reflexive' in moderation discussions a lot, but those don't quite cut it. Alan Kay pointed out that Kahnemann's slow-system vs. fast-system also applies here.
  - scoggs 9y ago
    I hereby propose the Dang Double Whammy Effect.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- sowbug 9y ago
  "Bikeshedding" should cover it if there isn't a more specific term. If not, then bikeshedding will.

SilasX 9y ago

I still don't understand what specifically you're objecting to (at least I think I don't). As best I can tell, you don't disagree with the points about statistics but think the discussion is somehow "without compassion", which stops it from being "our best discussion". Do I understand you correctly that you'd be okay with the comments if the were just prefixed with some "thoughts-and-prayers" genuflection? And if so, why not say it directly?

apeace 9y ago
I think dang described it best here [1] It's not the lack of compassion, it's the lack of substance. And I suppose it strikes me as lacking compassion and/or humility to come and use HN as a platform to recycle the same obvious idea, when the story is about a death. It would be different if it were about a tire blowing out. Everyone knows how these statistics work on a macro level. That's not worth commenting here on HN, and especially not on this story. I just think we could do better. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621716
- SilasX 9y ago
  I read dang's comment before posting. It still didn't help -- I can't come up with a mental model that generalizes the criticism into actionable rules for improved discussion (except as noted below). >Everyone knows how these statistics work on a macro level. That's not worth commenting here on HN, and especially not on this story. If statistical comparisons were obvious, and people didn't overreact with unjustifiable countermeasures, then indeed it wouldn't be important to make the point. But the world we live in is one where nuclear deaths are scarier than heart disease deaths, and shark attacks more than auto collisions. I think you're committing the fallacy of "my social circle doesn't make that mistake, therefore it's not worth pointing out." I can agree that users should be more careful about making the common point when others have made it, though -- I had a reply on this thread about "Uber flouted the $150 license" that I deleted when I saw others made a more informed response to the same point.

smallgovt 9y ago

>> not repetition of something obvious ad nauseam. The fact that Uber's self-driving car program has a worse deaths-per-miles-driven metric than human drivers is anything but obvious to me. After an incident like this, it's natural to question whether anything needs to be done policy-wise. And, I don't see any reason why that discussion can't take place here in the comments section. It seems like you want HN users to use the comments section to express condolences? Or, to just have an empty comments section?