From cab6233552d1f9b7e4f90eb462647c7eec1855f0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake" Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 12:01:44 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Sunday redemption hypercycle 1: Prof. H anecdote MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 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. --- content/drafts/gaydar-jamming.md | 14 +++++--------- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/drafts/gaydar-jamming.md b/content/drafts/gaydar-jamming.md index ffcad7b..70a17a7 100644 --- 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. -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 log2(97/3) ≈ 5 bits of evidence to think that someone probably is. -- 2.17.1