From the NHS Behind the Headlines blog: > “Self help makes you feel worse,” BBC News has reported. It says that the growing trend of using self-help mantras to boost your spirits may actually have a detrimental effect. The news comes from Canadian research, which found that people with low...
Eliezer observes, “Among all self-identified "rationalist" communities that I know of, and Less Wrong in particular, there is an obvious gender imbalance - a male/female ratio tilted strongly toward males.” and provides us with a selection of hypotheses that attempt to explain this notable fact, ranging over the normal cultural...
Why might not whole communities and public bodies be seized with fits of insanity, as well as individuals? Nothing but this principle, that they are liable to insanity, equally at least with private persons, can account for the major part of those transactions of which we read in history.
Bishop Joseph Butler
Friedman continues, but I shortened the quote to make it punchier. Essentially he says that, (1) given a large number of individuals irrationality will average out in the aggregate, (2) In most cases that an economist would be interested in (eg. investors, CEOs) the individuals have been selected to be good at the task they are performing, i.e. not irrational in that domain.
A writer on structuralism in the Times Literary Supplement has suggested that thoughts which are confused and tortuous by reason of their profundity are most appropriately expressed in prose that is deliberately unclear. What a preposterously silly idea! I am reminded of an air-raid warden in wartime Oxford who, when bright moonlight seemed to be defeating the spirit of the blackout, exhorted us to wear dark glasses. He, however, was being funny on purpose.
Peter Medawar
I think Mencken was using it in the sense of, "A peasant; a rustic; a farm servant.", (see also). It's an unusual usage.
... (read more)Suppose we know someone's objective and also know that half the time that person correctly figures out how to achieve it and half the time he acts at random. Since there is generally only one right way of doing things (or perhaps a few) but very many wrong ways, the "rational" behavior can be predicted but the "irrational" behavior cannot. If we predict the person's behavior on the assumption that he is rational, we will be right half the time. If we assume he is irrational, we will almost never be right, since we still have to guess which irrational thing he will do. We are better off assuming he is rational
... (read more)The inferior man's reasons for hating knowledge are not hard to discern. He hates it because it is complex - because it puts an unbearable burden upon his meagre capacity to take in ideas. Thus his search is always for short cuts. All superstitions are short cuts. Their aim is to make the unintelligible simple, and even obvious. So on what seem to be higher levels. No man who has not had a long and arduous education can understand even the most elementary concepts of modern pathology. But even a hind at the plough can grasp the theory of chiropractic in two lessons. Hence the vast popularity of chiropractic among the submerged
The day we allow biochauvinism to overtake Less Wrong is the day I leave for good.
Thank you, I stand corrected.
From the NHS Behind the Headlines blog:
“Self help makes you feel worse,” BBC News has reported. It says that the growing trend of using self-help mantras to boost your spirits may actually have a detrimental effect. The news comes from Canadian research, which found that people with low self-esteem felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves.
Although positive self-statements are widely believed to boost mood and self-esteem, they have not been widely studied, and their effectiveness has not been demonstrated. This experimental study sought to investigate the contradictory theory that these statements can be harmful.... (read 211 more words →)The researchers had a theory that when a person feels deficient in some way, making positive self-statements to
Eliezer observes, “Among all self-identified "rationalist" communities that I know of, and Less Wrong in particular, there is an obvious gender imbalance - a male/female ratio tilted strongly toward males.” and provides us with a selection of hypotheses that attempt to explain this notable fact, ranging over the normal cultural and biological explanations for male/female imbalances in any community. One important point was missing however, a point raised by Yvain last week under the title, Extreme Rationality: It's Not That Great. That fact is that we have not done anything yet. Eliezer writes under the assumption that women ought to want to study our writings, but since we have so far failed... (read 564 more words →)
Brother Ty's seventh law