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"Likely cognitive bias" is not a conclusion, it's an invitation to do more research. The catch is that the amount of research you can do is extremely limited co

"Likely cognitive bias" is not a conclusion, it's an invitation to do more research. The catch is that the amount of research you can do is extremely limited compared to what would be needed to verify the facts you hear, so you can't actually escape the need to trust and manage your trust relationships. An incredibly common mistake is to reject a decent but imperfect source in favor of a bad source, and for this reason I consider "trust less" actively harmful. Trust A over B when C (subject to real time limits on computing C) = ok Trust Less = harmful

RationalDino 3y ago
It is both an invitation and a conclusion. As you note, we need to decide who to trust, and we can't do sufficient research. So we need heuristics. The heuristics that I recommend are these: 1. Certainty, especially if there is debate among experts, indicates likely cognitive bias. 2. The ability to discuss how multiple perspectives would lead different people to different conclusions, suggests good reasoning. 3. A documented history of quantitative reasoning, along with data showing historical accuracy, is the best evidence of a trustworthy source. I base those heuristics on the research in https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/dp/0691128715 https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/d.... Applying this heuristic to "sounds certain" results in a conclusion, that is an invitation to further research that may or may not happen.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Did you (or to what degree) take epistemic soundness and logic into consideration during your analysis, or are you only coming at it from Bayesian perspective? To what degree did you take the degree of rationality you've achieved into consideration (Rationalists aspire to rationality, though they often forget that) during your analysis?

RationalDino 3y ago

It is both an invitation and a conclusion. As you note, we need to decide who to trust, and we can't do sufficient research. So we need heuristics. The heuristics that I recommend are these: 1. Certainty, especially if there is debate among experts, indicates likely cognitive bias. 2. The ability to discuss how multiple perspectives would lead different people to different conclusions, suggests good reasoning. 3. A documented history of quantitative reasoning, along with data showing historical accuracy, is the best evidence of a trustworthy source. I base those heuristics on the research in https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/dp/0691128715 https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/d.... Applying this heuristic to "sounds certain" results in a conclusion, that is an invitation to further research that may or may not happen.

mistermann 3y ago
Did you (or to what degree) take epistemic soundness and logic into consideration during your analysis, or are you only coming at it from Bayesian perspective? To what degree did you take the degree of rationality you've achieved into consideration (Rationalists aspire to rationality, though they often forget that) during your analysis?