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Question from me would be, what are the necessary conditions in an organization to create a culture that rewards recognizing and mitigating cognitive biases? Im

Question from me would be, what are the necessary conditions in an organization to create a culture that rewards recognizing and mitigating cognitive biases? Imagining that a series of Rationalist interview questions would seem a bit culty, and run the risk of going full Bridgewater.

throw1234651234 6y ago
I would imagine asking "When you approach a problem, do you apply any techniques to evaluate any cognitive biases that might be applicable" would elicit some sort of response without upsetting people. I don't know how important this is for most line employees. As a code monkey, I rarely have some strong bias besides "Angular is my personal preference over React" which immediately leads to "Well, should we use React anyway because the team knows it better and blah blah."
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  If you want to be a software engineer instead of a "code monkey", this is part of it. The software engineer has to be able to see the second order effects of changes to the code.
  - throw1234651234 6y ago
    In my opinion it's almost a given that any senior dev considers these. You can't be a senior dev / team lead / architect without thinking about how the system will be affected by decisions in the long run. From "MongoDB is faster, but it won't integrate with BI as well down the line" to "Well, GCP is great, but Google has a history of not supporting services in the long run."
    - jd_mongodb 6y ago
      Of course MongoDB does integrate with BI these days via its BI connector :-)
      - throw1234651234 6y ago
        Haha, well, I won't start an argument given your affiliation, but let's just say that most BI tools CLAIMED to be able to integrate with Mongo well, but in the end, we ended up dumping the data into SQL for the BI tools. This was 4 years ago, and we tested about 5 major BI providers and were willing to pay them ridiculous sums. With that said, I enjoy Mongo, for its specific use cases.
        jd_mongodb 6y ago
        We built our BI connector a few years ago for all the reasons you outline. Definitely worth a spin if you have this challenge again. Basically makes MongoDB look like MySQL (if that floats your boat :-)).
        throw1234651234 6y ago
        I will check it out, thanks.
wenc 6y ago
I wonder if I might explore that a little. Do recognizing and mitigating cognitive biases -- as goals -- necessarily lead to better organizations? On the face of it, it might seem the answer is yes. Fewer cognitive biases means better decisions that correspond more closely to reality. The thrust is that the more rational we are, the more effective our actions are. However, in my observation, the type of rationality that "works" isn't always the same as the type that is "logically correct" (they can be identical in some instances, but not in all). Successful organizations, it seems to me, tend to prize "instrumental rationality" over "value rationality" / "epistemic rationality" [1]. Just wondering what folks' thoughts are on that? Folks like Gerd Gigerenzer advocate the use of heuristics, which while are often biased, actually lead to good outcomes on average -- especially in incomplete information scenarios (which is most scenarios in real life). [2, 3] It has even been shown that heuristics or crude (or even slightly wrong) simple models can outperform complex rigorous models in complex environments – because they are usually more robust to assumption violations under changing conditions [4,5]. In real life, assumptions are violated to various degrees almost all the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationa... [2] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-heuristic-2795235 https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-heuristic-2795235 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics_in_judgment_and_decision-making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics_in_judgment_and_dec... [4] https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/09/17/robustness-of-simple-rules/ https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/09/17/robustness-of-simp... [5] https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-forecasts-fail-what-to-do-instead/ https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-forecasts-fail-what-...
Double_Cast 6y ago
Ironically, the Rationalists might frown on this. Several posts in the Sequences had a theme of "don't do what's raTi0NaL, do what actually wins." E.g. "The Ultimate Newcomb Problem" [0]. HN recognizes this same meme as "goal > tool". [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RAh4fekdiRhZxb2Kw/the-ultimate-newcomb-s-problem https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RAh4fekdiRhZxb2Kw/the-ultima...
Double_Cast 6y ago
If the goal is truth, you cultivate a desire to learn to succeed under diverse scenarios. The incentive is success itself. In a particular scenario, Falsehood can offer greater benefit than Truth. But the advantage of Truth, is that it provides your decision-making a robust foundation, even under volatile conditions. "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked." If the goal is recognition of bias, you cultivate social-norms which incentivize critique (both in yourself and others). Notice, however, that this begets perverse incentives. I.e. you can fool yourself, "recognize" a billion biases, then applaud yourself for your diligence. You can also invent new biases that don't actually make much difference.

throw1234651234 6y ago

I would imagine asking "When you approach a problem, do you apply any techniques to evaluate any cognitive biases that might be applicable" would elicit some sort of response without upsetting people. I don't know how important this is for most line employees. As a code monkey, I rarely have some strong bias besides "Angular is my personal preference over React" which immediately leads to "Well, should we use React anyway because the team knows it better and blah blah."

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
If you want to be a software engineer instead of a "code monkey", this is part of it. The software engineer has to be able to see the second order effects of changes to the code.
- throw1234651234 6y ago
  In my opinion it's almost a given that any senior dev considers these. You can't be a senior dev / team lead / architect without thinking about how the system will be affected by decisions in the long run. From "MongoDB is faster, but it won't integrate with BI as well down the line" to "Well, GCP is great, but Google has a history of not supporting services in the long run."
  - jd_mongodb 6y ago
    Of course MongoDB does integrate with BI these days via its BI connector :-)
    - throw1234651234 6y ago
      Haha, well, I won't start an argument given your affiliation, but let's just say that most BI tools CLAIMED to be able to integrate with Mongo well, but in the end, we ended up dumping the data into SQL for the BI tools. This was 4 years ago, and we tested about 5 major BI providers and were willing to pay them ridiculous sums. With that said, I enjoy Mongo, for its specific use cases.
      - jd_mongodb 6y ago
        We built our BI connector a few years ago for all the reasons you outline. Definitely worth a spin if you have this challenge again. Basically makes MongoDB look like MySQL (if that floats your boat :-)).
        throw1234651234 6y ago
        I will check it out, thanks.

wenc 6y ago

I wonder if I might explore that a little. Do recognizing and mitigating cognitive biases -- as goals -- necessarily lead to better organizations? On the face of it, it might seem the answer is yes. Fewer cognitive biases means better decisions that correspond more closely to reality. The thrust is that the more rational we are, the more effective our actions are. However, in my observation, the type of rationality that "works" isn't always the same as the type that is "logically correct" (they can be identical in some instances, but not in all). Successful organizations, it seems to me, tend to prize "instrumental rationality" over "value rationality" / "epistemic rationality" [1]. Just wondering what folks' thoughts are on that? Folks like Gerd Gigerenzer advocate the use of heuristics, which while are often biased, actually lead to good outcomes on average -- especially in incomplete information scenarios (which is most scenarios in real life). [2, 3] It has even been shown that heuristics or crude (or even slightly wrong) simple models can outperform complex rigorous models in complex environments – because they are usually more robust to assumption violations under changing conditions [4,5]. In real life, assumptions are violated to various degrees almost all the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationa... [2] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-heuristic-2795235 https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-heuristic-2795235 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics_in_judgment_and_decision-making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics_in_judgment_and_dec... [4] https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/09/17/robustness-of-simple-rules/ https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/09/17/robustness-of-simp... [5] https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-forecasts-fail-what-to-do-instead/ https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-forecasts-fail-what-...

Double_Cast 6y ago

Ironically, the Rationalists might frown on this. Several posts in the Sequences had a theme of "don't do what's raTi0NaL, do what actually wins." E.g. "The Ultimate Newcomb Problem" [0]. HN recognizes this same meme as "goal > tool". [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RAh4fekdiRhZxb2Kw/the-ultimate-newcomb-s-problem https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RAh4fekdiRhZxb2Kw/the-ultima...

Double_Cast 6y ago

If the goal is truth, you cultivate a desire to learn to succeed under diverse scenarios. The incentive is success itself. In a particular scenario, Falsehood can offer greater benefit than Truth. But the advantage of Truth, is that it provides your decision-making a robust foundation, even under volatile conditions. "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked." If the goal is recognition of bias, you cultivate social-norms which incentivize critique (both in yourself and others). Notice, however, that this begets perverse incentives. I.e. you can fool yourself, "recognize" a billion biases, then applaud yourself for your diligence. You can also invent new biases that don't actually make much difference.