Inverting Argument from authority, when is it good practice? I saw someone watching a daytime television show where they brought in someone to do an infomercial about health-marketed products. Instinctively, I didn't listen to any of the claims, instead all I could think of was "Well they're a salesperson, everything they're going to say is biased towards selling the products they brought today. This person shouldn't be watching this".
I'm sure you see my mistake here. It's convenient, it's easy, just filter out everyone who doesn't seem credible or who you suspect of having a bias: but is it optimal?
To be fair, i don't even know what their bottom line is - I only caught a vague sense that it had something to do with health. Not what specific benefits they were promising, nor how much they hedged those claims.
2Garrett Baker
This is not true, see filtered evidence.
Said simply, when someone has their bottom line written, you should think about whether the argument they’re presenting is more or less convincing than you’d expect on priors. If its more, update in favor of them. If its less, update against.
Of course, I would suggest pairing this with some practice making concrete forecasts so you can calibrate yourself on the typical qualities of argument to expect for various wrong and right conclusions.
Said simply, when someone has their bottom line written, you should think about whether the argument they’re presenting is more or less convincing than you’d expect on priors. If its more, update in favor of them. If its less, update against.
Does this apply for people who don't have a bottom-line written first? I'm thinking about, say, how I like hearing the opinions of people who view modern art, but have no art history or formal art education: I like hearing their naive judgements - now if they argue why a artwork is good that I find convincing, is this ... (read more)