Great interview. I am looking forward to seeing whether a couple of points are addressed in the book:
1. The relative ease of soldier-mindset solutions vs "healthier" solutions to motivation problems. Like, it's great that Bezos and Musk could convince themselves that their long shots were worth taking, rather than deluding themselves that they had a sure thing. But I think most of us find motivating ourselves to take high-EV low-probability gambles much harder than deluding ourselves about the probabilities. I am influenced here by my experience as a graduate student trying to do mathematical research, which is all about trying a lot proof strategies that probably won't work to find the few that do work, and which I found very dispiriting despite my love of math.
2. Practical strategies for reducing the social desirability bias that so often drives a soldier mindset. I think many people are embedded in communities which they value highly, which are important to their life projects and have a lot of really smart and capable and well-intentioned people in them, and in which there sadly are a bunch of empirical beliefs that you basically cannot publicly question without being ostracized from the community. It's not easy to weigh the social belonging vs truth seeking tradeoffs in that case, and "just change your friend group and coworker group to be all rationalists instead" is easier said than done.
The debate between Noah Smith and Julia Galef makes for interesting reading. To my mind, Noah Smith gets the better of the exchange. My reasons follow.
The first point has to do with the Bayesian search model that I believe is deeply embedded in Galef's logical model. As i understand it is more than critical thinking. It involves continual search, trying to scout out as much information for and against your prior position, attempting to be as unbiased as possible. Given cognitive dissonance I am unsure as to whether this is even possible but lets assume - employing AI logic - that we can do this. Where does it lead us? Not to absolute truth but only to a point consistent with our so-called factual knowledge. I assume that the virtue of reaching this point is that we can make fully formed decisions. as risk free as possible. It is a kind of statistical logic.
The problem is there is risk and there is uncertainty, a distinction made by Joseph Schumpeter in advancing his theory of entrepreneurship and excess profits accruing to dynamic entrepreneurs. It is more important to be "driven by a vision" than to take into risk on a ongoing basis. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" so to speak. As far as I can tell this is Noah Smith's position in a nutshell. You can think about dynamic entrepreneurs as geniuses of a peculiar sort. Thomas Edison once said, I believe, that he discarded thousands of ideas to come up with one good one. Geniuses work hard because they are inspired.
Consider Albert Einstein who was generally considered to be lazy by his teachers and even by the mathematician who eventually helped Einstein develop the formal mechanics of the General Theory of Relativity. Like all geniuses he was the opposite of risk-averse. Like all geniuses he pushed critical thinking to its logical limits, pushing electromagnetic field theory as a substitute for Newtonian mechanics. He did not receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for his Special Theory of Relativity that was too radical for most scientists to embrace in the early 20th century but rather for the photoelectric effect that was an extension of the analysis of Black Body Radiation. Of the two breakthroughs Einstein made in the early 20th century the theory of relativity was a stroke of genius, the photoelectric effect closer to what you might get with Bayesian search.
For me, a complicated discussion. I liked it, but when I ran into “noosphere”, had to pause (And look it up, which is amazingly easy to do now. One definition included a reference to Teilhard de Chardin which explained a lot for me. I have never understood any work of his.)
The argument here appears o equate rationality with the checks on cognitive and other bias in the scientific method, for instance rct, and thinking how to extend those principles to social sciences and in a new way to personal life and our choices of friend groups. How does this argument focussed on our emotional relationship to evidence apply to moral philosophy and aesthetics, for which evidence does not provide a test of, or a definition of rationality. Is there a cognitive bias here in favour of rationality? Or defining it in such an all encompassing way so as to avoid paradox, doubt and the emotional challenge of mystery? Are there important areas of life in which rationality is insufficient or misplaced? How do you test against a bias in favour of testing?
Read the book and found it helpful and I recommend it. It's a bit of a self-help book for better thinking, based on her own thoughts and experience over a long time. For me, the Scout/map metaphor has already been very helpful. When I feel myself getting emotionally involved in a debate, I have a simple metaphor to fall back on to help me to disengage emotionally. To some that might seem trivial, but it's not.
Also, regarding social pressure, she addresses this in the book by saying that we choose our self-identification and social groups. If we can't express our thoughts for fear of social pressure, maybe that's a sign we need to change how we identify ourselves and our social group.
Also regarding social pressure (and the dreaded cancel culture), I'm increasingly feeling that this is becoming pretty "snowflakey" if you will. In how many times and places and history have people faced zero social consequences for stating unpopular ideas? Yet history shows that there have been so many who have done so...some have paid a price and some have gone on to fame and fortune. It takes courage and likely always will. Even "shunning" on social media hardly the traumatic event that people make it out to be, unless you are driven by likes and retweets, in which case, how serious are you really about what you are talking about. People who express unpopular opinions often face scorn and but also find their own audience, in part because of their courage. The people who have the most to worry about are careerists.
Great interview. I am looking forward to seeing whether a couple of points are addressed in the book:
1. The relative ease of soldier-mindset solutions vs "healthier" solutions to motivation problems. Like, it's great that Bezos and Musk could convince themselves that their long shots were worth taking, rather than deluding themselves that they had a sure thing. But I think most of us find motivating ourselves to take high-EV low-probability gambles much harder than deluding ourselves about the probabilities. I am influenced here by my experience as a graduate student trying to do mathematical research, which is all about trying a lot proof strategies that probably won't work to find the few that do work, and which I found very dispiriting despite my love of math.
2. Practical strategies for reducing the social desirability bias that so often drives a soldier mindset. I think many people are embedded in communities which they value highly, which are important to their life projects and have a lot of really smart and capable and well-intentioned people in them, and in which there sadly are a bunch of empirical beliefs that you basically cannot publicly question without being ostracized from the community. It's not easy to weigh the social belonging vs truth seeking tradeoffs in that case, and "just change your friend group and coworker group to be all rationalists instead" is easier said than done.
Love this interview. Also love that you’re bringing Galef to a wider audience.
The debate between Noah Smith and Julia Galef makes for interesting reading. To my mind, Noah Smith gets the better of the exchange. My reasons follow.
The first point has to do with the Bayesian search model that I believe is deeply embedded in Galef's logical model. As i understand it is more than critical thinking. It involves continual search, trying to scout out as much information for and against your prior position, attempting to be as unbiased as possible. Given cognitive dissonance I am unsure as to whether this is even possible but lets assume - employing AI logic - that we can do this. Where does it lead us? Not to absolute truth but only to a point consistent with our so-called factual knowledge. I assume that the virtue of reaching this point is that we can make fully formed decisions. as risk free as possible. It is a kind of statistical logic.
The problem is there is risk and there is uncertainty, a distinction made by Joseph Schumpeter in advancing his theory of entrepreneurship and excess profits accruing to dynamic entrepreneurs. It is more important to be "driven by a vision" than to take into risk on a ongoing basis. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" so to speak. As far as I can tell this is Noah Smith's position in a nutshell. You can think about dynamic entrepreneurs as geniuses of a peculiar sort. Thomas Edison once said, I believe, that he discarded thousands of ideas to come up with one good one. Geniuses work hard because they are inspired.
Consider Albert Einstein who was generally considered to be lazy by his teachers and even by the mathematician who eventually helped Einstein develop the formal mechanics of the General Theory of Relativity. Like all geniuses he was the opposite of risk-averse. Like all geniuses he pushed critical thinking to its logical limits, pushing electromagnetic field theory as a substitute for Newtonian mechanics. He did not receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for his Special Theory of Relativity that was too radical for most scientists to embrace in the early 20th century but rather for the photoelectric effect that was an extension of the analysis of Black Body Radiation. Of the two breakthroughs Einstein made in the early 20th century the theory of relativity was a stroke of genius, the photoelectric effect closer to what you might get with Bayesian search.
Love this.
For me, a complicated discussion. I liked it, but when I ran into “noosphere”, had to pause (And look it up, which is amazingly easy to do now. One definition included a reference to Teilhard de Chardin which explained a lot for me. I have never understood any work of his.)
The argument here appears o equate rationality with the checks on cognitive and other bias in the scientific method, for instance rct, and thinking how to extend those principles to social sciences and in a new way to personal life and our choices of friend groups. How does this argument focussed on our emotional relationship to evidence apply to moral philosophy and aesthetics, for which evidence does not provide a test of, or a definition of rationality. Is there a cognitive bias here in favour of rationality? Or defining it in such an all encompassing way so as to avoid paradox, doubt and the emotional challenge of mystery? Are there important areas of life in which rationality is insufficient or misplaced? How do you test against a bias in favour of testing?
Read the book and found it helpful and I recommend it. It's a bit of a self-help book for better thinking, based on her own thoughts and experience over a long time. For me, the Scout/map metaphor has already been very helpful. When I feel myself getting emotionally involved in a debate, I have a simple metaphor to fall back on to help me to disengage emotionally. To some that might seem trivial, but it's not.
Also, regarding social pressure, she addresses this in the book by saying that we choose our self-identification and social groups. If we can't express our thoughts for fear of social pressure, maybe that's a sign we need to change how we identify ourselves and our social group.
Also regarding social pressure (and the dreaded cancel culture), I'm increasingly feeling that this is becoming pretty "snowflakey" if you will. In how many times and places and history have people faced zero social consequences for stating unpopular ideas? Yet history shows that there have been so many who have done so...some have paid a price and some have gone on to fame and fortune. It takes courage and likely always will. Even "shunning" on social media hardly the traumatic event that people make it out to be, unless you are driven by likes and retweets, in which case, how serious are you really about what you are talking about. People who express unpopular opinions often face scorn and but also find their own audience, in part because of their courage. The people who have the most to worry about are careerists.