
Daniel Kahneman: ‘What would I eliminate if I had a magic wand? Overconfidence’ - aaronchall
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/18/daniel-kahneman-books-interview
======
torreens
Typical partial-rationality. Humans are not robots. Having an accurate picture
of your own flaws and the risks involved in most endeavors will _not_ help you
to perform better than having a slight overconfidence. We tends to
overemphasize risks if we are made persistently aware of them. In every
dynamic performance based activity, this tendency needs to be counterbalanced
by a degree of irrational confidence. It's a feature, not a bug.

There are times when it is also harmful, but things like actually being able
to talk to that girl, ask for that raise, close that sale, take down that
oppressor...these things benefit tremendously from irrational confidence.

Removing all overconfidence would be the end of the human race.

~~~
rodgerd
Three paragraphs to demolish an acclaimed Nobel prize winner! Congratulations!
You should be put forward for yours.

~~~
arpa
Not to be that guy, but -- you are appealing to authority, which is not a
valid argument... Personally, if I had a magic wand, would probably use it on
myself to cure that damn impostor syndrome and the paralyzing fear of failure.
But that's just me.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well technically, while appeal to authority may not be valid for a perfectly
informed rational agent, it is something that is valid for humans for the very
same reasons 'torreens advocates overconfidence is useful - namely, we don't
have neither enough time nor computing power to evaluate to evaluate all
available data. Authority is a useful heuristic.

~~~
eivarv
An appeal to authority is never a valid argument, as it is a logical fallacy
(i.e. by definition invalid).

Sure, authority can be a useful heuristic for non-authorities, but is useless
in argumentative reasoning, e.g. "X, who is an authority says Y, and so
[therefore] Y is true".

~~~
rodgerd
> An appeal to authority is never a valid argument, as it is a logical fallacy
> (i.e. by definition invalid).

Jenny McCarthy and Dave Grohl's opinions on the effectiveness of vaccination
are clearly as valid as my doctor's. Weighting my doctor's views above those
is clearly a fallacy because debating rules.

~~~
eivarv
I appreciate your sarcastic attempt to make a point via reductio ad absurdum,
but as you can see the only thing I'm saying is that arguments that makes the
assumption that whatever an authority figure says regarding a matter must be
true (argument from authority) are never valid.

I'm not saying that expert opinions don't have merit, I'm saying that expert
opinions aren't logically true _because they are uttered by experts_.

I suggest you look a little more into these "debating rules" (logical
fallacies), as they are basically old-timey resoning rules; i.e. popular and
intuitive arguments that don't make sense.

P.S. As I recall, the Foo Fighters were mixed up in HIV-denialism, not anti-
vaccination.

------
davemel37
>“(overconfidence)is built so deeply into the structure of the mind that you
couldn’t change it without changing many other things”.

Based on his book and other books similar I think he is referring to people
using incomplete data to prove a fact and have absolute confidence in it
despite a cognitive bias being at play. Just think about all the political
issues we are so aure about or the anecdotal evidence we trusted about a new
feature or the results of a split test.

There is a case study with horse handicappers in "the psychology of
intelligence analysis" that shows the accuracy of handicapper predictions were
the same whether they had 5 data points or 40...but when they had 40 their
confidence in their predictions skyrocketed.

He is warning us to second guess those facts (not self esteem related) that we
feel so confident in...

------
amelius
> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
> certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

\-- Bertrand Russell

~~~
stophammertime
This is a nice saying, but there are other classes of fools and fanatics who
are also full of doubt. How do you know if you're any one of those?

SELECT * FROM Everyone WHERE doubt=true && (foolishness=true ||
fanaticism=true)

------
freyr
Great, now where will we find 24 year olds to run Silicon Valley startups?

------
afrancis
Interesting article. On overconfidence. A number of years ago, I took a
graduate managerial science course. I recall an exercise: 10 questions (i.e,
the moon's diameter) were asked with an numerical answer. One has to provide a
range (high, low) that guarantees one is 90% correct without being overly wide
in one's estimate. I think the goal was to get 6 questions correct. The class
abysmally failed: answers way too narrow. The class really over-estimated
their knowledge. There was more questions like this, all to demonstrate
various fallacies in decision making.

That said, I recall reading a chapter in the "Black Swan" on balancing
overconfidence and underconfidence.

Reading some of the comments reminded me of a quote from Bill Parcells:
"Confidence is born out of demonstrated ability."

------
DonHopkins
That's odd. Owning a magic want would give me a lot of confidence. It's
magic!!!

~~~
StavrosK
Overconfidence is confidence above your ability to actually deliver. You
pretty much can't get overconfident in a magic wand, it's magic.

~~~
Ntrails
You can get overconfident in your ability to use it - gotta save those charges
for when they really count man.

~~~
acheron
Yeah but you can always repeatedly (z)ap it when it's out of charges to wrest
one last charge.

~~~
DonHopkins
Now you tell me. DAMMIT!

------
linhchi
Human's emotions are connected in constellations.

Overconfidence has its evolutionary story. For example, with a little
overconfidence, you can take risk to start up. You have to be a bit delusional
to aim high. And it doesn't sound bad to me.

~~~
dschiptsov
It is about mating mostly.)

------
tempodox
TL; DR: Nobody can really know, and it's all just held together by hope, in
spite of evidence to the contrary.

That's a nice change from the “we tell you how to succeed” methodologies for
the impatient.

Heidegger was wrong. Not even a god can save us.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
You know, the world keeps turning and civilization keeps running on a daily
basis. All of that is pretty solid evidence that we're a lot less cognitively
crippled than we think we are.

------
yvsong
Overconfidence can only be defined in hindsight, therefore avoiding
overconfidence cannot be a guide for decision making.

------
ianstallings
It's always in others. Never in us.

~~~
ycosynot
As the smartest man on Earth, I concur the problem is with you all. Goddamn
blind people, when will you see my genius already, I need money for a
Lamborghini. Don't make me work for it. And I see your doubt, and I raise the
card 'Self-reliance' by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
Reliance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Reliance)

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Self-
Rel...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Self-Reliance)

For certain, it is beautiful. Reason, it's overrated, it makes people all
mean.

"Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say `I
think,' `I am,' but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade
of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to
former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with
God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect
in every moment of its existence."

Sounds like me

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dschiptsov
That means 2/3 of HN.

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Htsthbjig
I would replace the term "Nobel Price in Economics", with "Nobel Memorial
price of Economics" or "Fake Nobel Price" for short in any publication.

~~~
blueflow
Obama got a Nobel Price despite Guatanamo and Drone Murders, so i think the
price's value isn't that high anymore.

------
littletimmy
"Nobel prize in Economics" = "Swedish Bank Prize in Economics".

It's ridiculous when some financiers get together to legitimize their field,
co-opt the brand of another prestigious award, and everything just accepts it.

~~~
qwtel
I think Daniel Kahneman is the wrong guy to start with this argument.

