X-Git-Url: http://unremediatedgender.space/source?a=blobdiff_plain;f=content%2Fdrafts%2Freply-to-scott-alexander-on-autogenderphilia.md;h=a143e92f716895633234df09c6acb3e9c585caca;hb=2f9237d0501b07f32e2c0939a79d2d59d1fd5c61;hp=a576f6a3e92458700cb694609e2e9ff6407bac2d;hpb=f0325d5544c2c23107e8e11ae973980e51df4b0b;p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git diff --git a/content/drafts/reply-to-scott-alexander-on-autogenderphilia.md b/content/drafts/reply-to-scott-alexander-on-autogenderphilia.md index a576f6a..a143e92 100644 --- a/content/drafts/reply-to-scott-alexander-on-autogenderphilia.md +++ b/content/drafts/reply-to-scott-alexander-on-autogenderphilia.md @@ -4,10 +4,6 @@ Category: commentary Tags: autogynephilia, epistemology, two-type taxonomy Status: draft -[This started out as a draft email to Scott, but I'm really unhappy with the way it's developing; I should try to sculpt it into a defensible public post instead—or make it a good email first, then a post] - -on parsimony intuitions (re autogenderphilia and developmental psychology) - > Why idly theorize when you can JUST CHECK and find out the ACTUAL ANSWER to a superficially similar-sounding question SCIENTIFICALLY? > > —[Steven Kaas](https://twitter.com/stevenkaas/status/148884531917766656) @@ -99,19 +95,3 @@ Ozy has an old post about [how "the community" doesn't have a _gender_ gap; we m If it were _just_ a matter of different priors (where my stronger [inductive bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_bias) lets me learn faster from less data, at the cost of [being wrong in universes that I think mostly don't exist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_free_lunch_in_search_and_optimization)), I would expect you to express more uncertainty. I would _totally_ respect it if you were merely _uncertain_ about the AGP→gender-ID _vs._ gender-ID→AGP causality. [I _agree_ that causality is _much harder_ to pin down than mere correlation.](http://unremediatedgender.space/2021/Feb/you-are-right-and-i-was-wrong-reply-to-tailcalled-on-causality/) But on Discord, you said "it just seemed totally wrong"!! If you're _not_ playing a "does the evidence permit me to believe" game, I just don't see how you think the _SSC_ survey data is powerful enough to answer that question one way or the other! If I had a prior belief that invisible dragons were plausible, I would remain _agnostic_ about the no-dragon _vs._ invisible-dragon hypotheses upon seeing an apparently empty garage. But to say that the no-dragon hypothesis "just seems totally wrong" ... ?!?! - ------- - - - - - -> We have a debate every year over whether 50% predictions are meaningful in this paradigm; feel free to continue it. - -Someone reading this who trusted Alexander as a general-purpose intellectual authority ("the best of us", the "rationalists") might walk away with the idea that it's an open problem whether 50% binary predictions are meaningful—perhaps reasoning, if the immortal Scott Alexander doesn't know, then who am I to know? - -But it's not. On this website, [Rafael Harth explains why 50% isn't special](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DAc4iuy4D3EiNBt9B/how-to-evaluate-50-predictions). I claim that this should actually be pretty obvious to competent quantitative thinkers, even if it's not obvious to the collective _SSC_/_ACX_ commentariat, and Alexander can't tell which of his commenters are competent quantitative thinkers. - -I don't particularly fault Scott for this: [by his own admission, he's not a math guy](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/31/the-parable-of-the-talents/). (And the vast majority of math people can't write as well or as fast as Scott. No one is the best at everything!) Rather, I'm saying that a culture that wants to _actually_ be right about everything would do better to _just_ focus on being right on the object level, without [wireheading on its own promises of being right about everything](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/effective-altruism-is-self-recommending/). - -(Incidentally, Scott himself is actually very good about [not trying to claim more authority than is actually justified by his performance](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/04/some-clarifications-on-rationalist-blogging/). His fans should try to be more like him along this dimension!)