

Heuristics, Biases & Rationality - ilaksh
http://www.vimeo.com/2648376
The study of reproducible errors of human reasoning, and what these errors reveal about underlying mental processes, is known as the heuristics and biases program in cognitive psychology. This program has made discoveries highly relevant to assessors of global catastrophic risks. Eliezer Yudkowsky, who writes on the subject of cognitive biases at Overcoming Bias, presented at the Global Catastrophic Risks conference in Mountain View was on the subject of cognitive biases in the assessment of risk.
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nazgulnarsil
something that particularly jumped out at me was the mention of biases in
relation to the jury trial. Since we know that people are prone to making
these types of errors consistently lawyers can take advantage of it. Is there
any reason to think that professional rationalists wouldn't make better jurors
than "a jury of peers"?

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yters
A problem with rationalists is that to make oneself truly rational they have
to somewhat kill their instinctive, spirited side. But, the instinctive,
spirit side is based on millions of years of evolution. So, the rationalist is
missing out on a massive chunk of life.

A good combo is Kirk/Spock, Hamlet/Horatio.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Rationality also doesn't provide you with goals, only means to achieve goals.

