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I think this is a really thoughtful post. I'd encourage us (readers in general) not to trip over the specific illustrations that are being used to show a genera

I think this is a really thoughtful post. I'd encourage us (readers in general) not to trip over the specific illustrations that are being used to show a general point—namely, that when humans attempt to identify cause-effect relationships we're nearly always performing some kind of selection on top of the "raw" data available to us (which is, itself, nearly always a mere sub-set of all the "raw" data that could exist on that subject). This observation, if we take it seriously, will encourage us (humans in general trying to make sense of the world) to be humble about the conclusions we reach and mildly skeptical about the conclusions others reach, even when those conclusions feel really incontrovertible.

cfiggers 4y ago
Cont'd: It's one thing to observe "Humans make mistakes all the time, therefore I should be humble about my conclusions and mildly skeptical toward others'." It's another thing to have a FUNCTIONAL MODEL of HOW AND WHY humans make certain categories of mistake. Such a thing can help us sort through proposed answers to complex questions with better discernment than just the basic realization that "this was arrived at by a fallible human, therefore it could be wrong, so I won't hold it too dogmatically."
- hammock 4y ago
  All models are wrong, some are useful
nonameiguess 4y ago
I agree it's a thoughtful post and it makes a good point, but at the same time, it's an issue with the way a lot of people take Scott Alexander's posts. He is clearly not putting this out there as absolute truth, just saying here is an explanation, it sounds plausible, and I can't find much evidence immediately to disprove it. But he also says there are other equally plausible explanations he can't disprove. He often, if not always, puts an "epistemic status" disclaimer at the top of his posts, and the wider web community doesn't seem to know how to deal with those. They are used to interpret bloggers and the opinion sphere as 100% believing and promoting anything they write about. But that is very much not what Scott is doing. He understands quite well that causality is way too complicated to ever conclusively answer a question like "why did history turn out the way it did?"

cfiggers 4y ago

Cont'd: It's one thing to observe "Humans make mistakes all the time, therefore I should be humble about my conclusions and mildly skeptical toward others'." It's another thing to have a FUNCTIONAL MODEL of HOW AND WHY humans make certain categories of mistake. Such a thing can help us sort through proposed answers to complex questions with better discernment than just the basic realization that "this was arrived at by a fallible human, therefore it could be wrong, so I won't hold it too dogmatically."

hammock 4y ago
All models are wrong, some are useful

nonameiguess 4y ago

I agree it's a thoughtful post and it makes a good point, but at the same time, it's an issue with the way a lot of people take Scott Alexander's posts. He is clearly not putting this out there as absolute truth, just saying here is an explanation, it sounds plausible, and I can't find much evidence immediately to disprove it. But he also says there are other equally plausible explanations he can't disprove. He often, if not always, puts an "epistemic status" disclaimer at the top of his posts, and the wider web community doesn't seem to know how to deal with those. They are used to interpret bloggers and the opinion sphere as 100% believing and promoting anything they write about. But that is very much not what Scott is doing. He understands quite well that causality is way too complicated to ever conclusively answer a question like "why did history turn out the way it did?"