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There is a dark side to grey thinking: Some people abandon black and white and replace it with a single shade of grey [1]. In order to have effective grey thi

There is a dark side to grey thinking: Some people abandon black and white and replace it with a single shade of grey [1]. In order to have effective grey thinking, I think you need at least a basic understanding of statistics. This is also a great defense against others who seek to bamboozle you. ___ 1. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallacy-of-gray https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallac...

throwno 7y ago
Exactly. Once you start to allow grey thinking next thing you know some fascist is suggesting that orangeman may not be that bad and that is something we can't have.
- incompleteness 7y ago
  Ironic for these to be the only grey letters in the comment section. "A slippery slope; and so it all began..."
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    I suspect the grey text is due to the use of the "orange man = bad" phrasing, popular on /r/thedonald as a way to trivialize the argument of any critic of Trump. Ironically, dismissing any criticism of Trump as simply this knee-jerk reaction, the people using this phrase quite often make the same mistake they are trying to accuse others of.
  - foolinaround 7y ago
    the other aspect that i just realized as I thought about this is that in evaluating Trump in grey thinking -- one may have him as light grey or dark grey... but this depends merely on the prioritization of the factors that is assigned. People who are benefited to an extent by Trump's impact/policies/actions have him at a light grey. The next thing it leads to is a demonization of the group in light grey by the group in dark grey - instead of white and black. why not the groups just agree to disagree and move on?
wenc 7y ago
> I think you need at least a basic understanding of statistics Right -- which is related to thinking in percentages (I almost wanted to say thinking in probabilities, but it's not quite that... it's more fundamental.) For instance, the age-old question of nature vs nurture. In debates, the answer always into 100% one or the other which makes for a good fight to watch, but in real life we know it's both, and with differing percentages in each situation. Wading into a slightly more controversial category -- gender pay gaps. Is the pay gap for the same position 100% consistently due to gender? (Twitter will have you believe "yes" but the answer is more complex). Most of us know that pay gaps are due to a series of factors of which structural discrimination based on gender is only one (a significant one, and one that needs to be rectified). But there are other factors like job performance, compensation negotiation skills, visibility of work (results don't always speak for themselves, there's often a need to sell), all factors occurring in different percentages in individuals/groups. Understanding these other factors and the proportions to which they occur and help in devising practical interventions to address them in order to have sustainable equity over the long term. If we can only switch our mindset from binary categories to multinomial ones, and assign percentages to the contributions of each, we can make moves toward finding solutions instead of just being angry at each other, which doesn't really lead to lasting change.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I agree with this broadly with a caveat I'm curious about: What do we do when these factors also have factors? Does it increase the contribution of a factor if it applies to both the measured factor's dependencies and also the dependencies' dependencies? Let's say pay gap is 5% "anti-black racism" when it comes to a black man being paid in software development. Pay gap is also 40% job performance, 20% visibility, 15% negotiations, 10% unknown, 5% underpaying due to being black. What happens if visibility is 10% antiblackness, due to a manager have just a small amount of bias when delegating visible work? Does this increase the 5% antiblackness by the 10% of 40% (to like 5.4%?) EDIT: I'm not trying to be socially just in this analysis, so we can also replace being black with being openly conservative for example, or being from a different college, or not liking the same sport or same beer as one's peers. Pretty much anything can fit into this, I'm just trying to analyze this viewpoint.
ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
So what you are saying is that Black and White thinking limits your options because its only two colors. Adding Grey is good, unless you only think in Grey because that is only 1 color, and 1 color is less than 2. We should all think in at least 3 colors. Which requires a basic understanding of statistics. But what about thinking in colors that are actual colors? Like... at least the primaries. What type of education would be required to throw in some Blue or maybe Red?
- bena 7y ago
  You're over-stretching the metaphor at that point. "Black and white" can just as easily be "blue and red" thinking. Any binary choice works. "Gray" is just supposed to represent seeing things in a more analog fashion. You could replace it with "purple". The problem arises when all you do is point out the gradients rather than make a decision based on the information given. So the idea isn't to "introduce more colors" but to finally make a decision. "Yes, this is grey. But it's a really, really, really dark grey. It's mostly black with a tiny bit of white." A good live example is gambling. You're often forced to make decisions based on incomplete information where every decision has some upside and some downside. You can't sit there hemming and hawing.

throwno 7y ago

Exactly. Once you start to allow grey thinking next thing you know some fascist is suggesting that orangeman may not be that bad and that is something we can't have.

incompleteness 7y ago
Ironic for these to be the only grey letters in the comment section. "A slippery slope; and so it all began..."
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  I suspect the grey text is due to the use of the "orange man = bad" phrasing, popular on /r/thedonald as a way to trivialize the argument of any critic of Trump. Ironically, dismissing any criticism of Trump as simply this knee-jerk reaction, the people using this phrase quite often make the same mistake they are trying to accuse others of.
- foolinaround 7y ago
  the other aspect that i just realized as I thought about this is that in evaluating Trump in grey thinking -- one may have him as light grey or dark grey... but this depends merely on the prioritization of the factors that is assigned. People who are benefited to an extent by Trump's impact/policies/actions have him at a light grey. The next thing it leads to is a demonization of the group in light grey by the group in dark grey - instead of white and black. why not the groups just agree to disagree and move on?

wenc 7y ago

> I think you need at least a basic understanding of statistics Right -- which is related to thinking in percentages (I almost wanted to say thinking in probabilities, but it's not quite that... it's more fundamental.) For instance, the age-old question of nature vs nurture. In debates, the answer always into 100% one or the other which makes for a good fight to watch, but in real life we know it's both, and with differing percentages in each situation. Wading into a slightly more controversial category -- gender pay gaps. Is the pay gap for the same position 100% consistently due to gender? (Twitter will have you believe "yes" but the answer is more complex). Most of us know that pay gaps are due to a series of factors of which structural discrimination based on gender is only one (a significant one, and one that needs to be rectified). But there are other factors like job performance, compensation negotiation skills, visibility of work (results don't always speak for themselves, there's often a need to sell), all factors occurring in different percentages in individuals/groups. Understanding these other factors and the proportions to which they occur and help in devising practical interventions to address them in order to have sustainable equity over the long term. If we can only switch our mindset from binary categories to multinomial ones, and assign percentages to the contributions of each, we can make moves toward finding solutions instead of just being angry at each other, which doesn't really lead to lasting change.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
I agree with this broadly with a caveat I'm curious about: What do we do when these factors also have factors? Does it increase the contribution of a factor if it applies to both the measured factor's dependencies and also the dependencies' dependencies? Let's say pay gap is 5% "anti-black racism" when it comes to a black man being paid in software development. Pay gap is also 40% job performance, 20% visibility, 15% negotiations, 10% unknown, 5% underpaying due to being black. What happens if visibility is 10% antiblackness, due to a manager have just a small amount of bias when delegating visible work? Does this increase the 5% antiblackness by the 10% of 40% (to like 5.4%?) EDIT: I'm not trying to be socially just in this analysis, so we can also replace being black with being openly conservative for example, or being from a different college, or not liking the same sport or same beer as one's peers. Pretty much anything can fit into this, I'm just trying to analyze this viewpoint.

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago

So what you are saying is that Black and White thinking limits your options because its only two colors. Adding Grey is good, unless you only think in Grey because that is only 1 color, and 1 color is less than 2. We should all think in at least 3 colors. Which requires a basic understanding of statistics. But what about thinking in colors that are actual colors? Like... at least the primaries. What type of education would be required to throw in some Blue or maybe Red?

bena 7y ago
You're over-stretching the metaphor at that point. "Black and white" can just as easily be "blue and red" thinking. Any binary choice works. "Gray" is just supposed to represent seeing things in a more analog fashion. You could replace it with "purple". The problem arises when all you do is point out the gradients rather than make a decision based on the information given. So the idea isn't to "introduce more colors" but to finally make a decision. "Yes, this is grey. But it's a really, really, really dark grey. It's mostly black with a tiny bit of white." A good live example is gambling. You're often forced to make decisions based on incomplete information where every decision has some upside and some downside. You can't sit there hemming and hawing.