Noise to Signal #4
The cost of updating the network of priors and not just the node:
A response thread about disentangling real world strategic interaction laid bare:
…with an upshot that describes why strategy isn’t really Machiavellian:
Take this, literalists:
From what interpretation of “rule” does law become so absolute?
When they came for the hot takes, I said nothing, for I had only weak takes.
What if a name was enough to solve a problem? What if you live in a world where a lot of people believe that?
The pragmatists believed in ideas that “pay rent”; Chauncey Wright and Oliver Wendell Holmes argued for “bettabilitarianism,” a kind of precursor to critical rationalism: “We can never know anything for certain; we can only place bets one way or another.”
and
If you’re hungry for such a take-down, 🍌‘s got you covered, 🧵:
On the latest John Ioannidis controversy:
Liberals and conservatives alike overestimate the rates of COVID fatality and hospitalization by a factor of 10. Most democrats believe that global warming is an existential threat, despite even our most dire scientific forecasts indicating no such thing. Why is our risk assessment so wrong? Why are we so terrified?
and
On perspective:
Now imagine removing all information about its environment, and trying to understand this snake:
Now you’re thinking with context.