Sunday redemption hypercycle 1: Prof. H anecdote

Why do I have so much trouble doing things?! It's the last day of my
weekend, and I am utterly determined to prove that I deserve it—that
I'm not a waste.

diff --git a/content/drafts/gaydar-jamming.md b/content/drafts/gaydar-jamming.md
index ffcad7b..70a17a7 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/gaydar-jamming.md
+++ b/content/drafts/gaydar-jamming.md
@@ -16,16 +16,12 @@ Ideology isn't my style anymore—or rather, these days, my ideology is about th
 
 I mean, I don't "know" that; I have no recollection of the kid ever _saying_ so in my presence. Nevertheless, between the reading (like about the [Cohen's _d_](/2019/Sep/does-general-intelligence-deflate-standardized-effect-sizes-of-cognitive-sex-differences/) ≈ [1.3 effect size of childhood sex-typed behavior on sexual orientation](/papers/bailey-zucker-childhood_sex-typed_behavior_and_sexual_orientation.pdf)) and the ideological deprogramming I've done since, I feel pretty comfortable putting my weight on a prediction derived from the crudest stereotype insofar as I expect the stereotype to actually get the right answer, in contrast to my teenage ideological fever dream of not wanting that to be possible.
 
 
 I mean, I don't "know" that; I have no recollection of the kid ever _saying_ so in my presence. Nevertheless, between the reading (like about the [Cohen's _d_](/2019/Sep/does-general-intelligence-deflate-standardized-effect-sizes-of-cognitive-sex-differences/) ≈ [1.3 effect size of childhood sex-typed behavior on sexual orientation](/papers/bailey-zucker-childhood_sex-typed_behavior_and_sexual_orientation.pdf)) and the ideological deprogramming I've done since, I feel pretty comfortable putting my weight on a prediction derived from the crudest stereotype insofar as I expect the stereotype to actually get the right answer, in contrast to my teenage ideological fever dream of not wanting that to be possible.
 

-Something I still can't reconstruct from memory—or maybe [lack the exact concepts to express](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sXHQ9R5tahiaXEZhR/algorithmic-intent-a-hansonian-generalized-anti-zombie)—is to what extent I "sincerely" thought that stereotyping didn't _work_, and to what extent I was self-righteously "playing dumb". Though my notebooks bear no record of it, I must have known _about_ the stereotype. 
+Something I still can't reconstruct from memory—or maybe [lack the exact concepts to express](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sXHQ9R5tahiaXEZhR/algorithmic-intent-a-hansonian-generalized-anti-zombie)—is to what extent I "sincerely" thought that stereotyping didn't _work_, and to what extent I was self-righteously "playing dumb". Though my notebooks bear no record of it, I must have known _about_ the stereotype ... I didn't have a concept of Bayesian reasoning as normative ideal, though?

 
 

-[...]
+Maybe another anecdote from a few years later is informative about the thought process. In the early 'tens, while [slumming in community college](/2022/Apr/student-dysphoria-and-a-previous-lifes-war/#back-to-school), I took the "Calculus III" course from a really great professor who respected my intellectual autonomy, and, as it happens, the man had a very distinctive voice.  I'm not even sure how to describe it in terms of lower-level precepts, but you know it when you hear it. And I wondered, on the basis of his voice, whether he was gay.

 
 

-A few years later, in the early 'tens, while [slumming in community college](/2022/Apr/student-dysphoria-and-a-previous-lifes-war/#back-to-school)
+At this point in my ideological evolution, I _did_ have a concept of Bayesian reasoning as normative ideal. But I thought to myself, well, base rates: _most_ people aren't gay, and the professor's voice isn't _enough_ evidence to overcome that prior; he's probably not gay.

 
 

-he had very distinctive voice. 
+Looking back, there's nothing wrong with the _form_ of my reasoning—[base rate neglect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy) is in fact a thing—but I suspect I was _quantitatively_ in the wrong?

 
 

-I'm not even sure how to describe it in terms of lower-level precepts, but you know it when you hear it. And I wondered, on the basis of his voice, whether he was gay.
-
-At the point in my ideological evolution, 
-
-base rates
+If 3% of men are gay, you "only" need log<sub>2</sub>(97/3) ≈ 5 bits of evidence to think that someone probably is.