

List of cognitive biases - eru
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_biases
"Pseudocertainty effect — the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes."<p>May explain why most people stay employed.
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sofal
It looks like some people have the idea that biases are inherently bad, and
they see this collection of bias patterns as a list of flaws that would not
stain the judgment of the ideal human being.

This is not true. Unless your ideal human being is omniscient.

In many cases it makes sense to set up a framework where we try to minimize
these things, such as a scientific observation or experiment. We minimize bias
as best we can in such cases because we're trying to learn something that
exists outside of the realm of human experience, or that at least is universal
to all humans. However, the motivations behind all such experiments are
hopelessly mired in dubious assumptions, heuristics, and guesses (like
hypotheses). I say 'hopelessly' but I would use a more positive term, since
bias is ultimately what drives human action.

This is why it is important to recognize when and what biases are appropriate
in what contexts. Here's a quote from this very article:

 _"Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behaviour. Some are
presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to more effective actions
or enable faster decisions. Others presumably result from a lack of
appropriate mental mechanisms, or from the misapplication of a mechanism that
is adaptive under different circumstances."_

Being free from bias doesn't make you smart, it makes you paralyzed. What
makes you smart is your ability to use these adaptive thought processes in a
way that enables you to accomplish your ends.

Seen in this way, it is impossible to blame world hunger, etc. on people's
cognitive biases. Maybe you can blame it on capable selfish people combined
with inappropriate biases among the general population?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Articles like these are like a cognitive maturity test.

If you understand that biases empower action, and the logical fallacies many
times revolve around language, then these categories are nice-to-have
illustrations, or patterns (for you geeks) of conversations.

Like all pattern systems, however, their use is more illustrative than
practical. And of course, people sit around patting themselves on the back
about how they've mastered the system, meanwhile having the same biases and
logical flaws as the rest of humanity.

That's not smart, that's blind.

------
antirez
Base rate fallacy — ignoring available statistical data in favor of
particulars.

I really had problems in the past trying to don't say bad words to the
incredible amount of people that suffer from this "bias".

Things like "don't eat too much meat, statistically it may hurt your healt".
Reply: "My grandmother used to eat tons of meat and dead at 90".

~~~
gaika
Maybe you should reconsider. Sampling over people around you is a lot more
accurate metric than global statistics.

First you have data sample that is relevant to people just like you. That
means that you do not have to compensate for other factors as you're affected
in the same way.

Second you do not have to trust other people for properly gathering,
processing, and presenting the data.

~~~
litewulf
All well and good, but your sample is usually very small _and_ you as a human
being can't handle confounding factors very well. Add on the fact that you are
also prone to selection bias...

~~~
gaika
That's the point! Selection bias compensates for all your confounding factors.
You're in the same bin as your friends. Same factors, same outcomes.

For example how many of your friends (or friends of friends if your sample is
too small) are dead in auto accidents is a lot better predictor for your fate
than any global country statistics you can find.

~~~
litewulf
Er rather, I meant a different selection bias. The one where you selectively
remember friends that fit your hypothesis.

Also, the thing with quite a few statistics is that the risk is say 1/1000,
and I honestly have closer to 50 people who I interact with in a month.

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andreyf
I've always found one missing - being put into an agreeable state of mind with
truthisms. For example:

Babies are cute, violence is bad, <something>, and furthermore, kittens are
cuddly.

Makes <something> seem more likely to be true. Is there a name for it?

~~~
Eliezer
I call them "applause lights".

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/09/applause-lights.html>

Special case of the halo effect:

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/halo-effect.html>

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alex_c
My god. Reading through that list, it's amazing when anyone (including myself)
ever manages to get anything done, or that society works as well as it does.

Yeah, I guess I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

~~~
andreyf
This list is precisely _how_ we get things done - by building trusting
relationships, ignoring data most likely to be distracting, and focusing on
stuff that can hurt us.

~~~
OneSeventeen
And, by contrast, this is why computers are so slow at some decisions: no
biases or heuristics, no input prioritization, etc.

------
nazgulnarsil
combine with this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_logical_fallacies>

for a total picture of the magnitude of stupidity present in modern society.
the more intimately familiar you become with reason the more disgusted you
will be. don't say i didn't warn you.

~~~
scott_s
When I read "modern society," the implication I read is that this is different
from older society. But in this case, that's certainly not true. We've always
been like this.

The more you learn about this, the more you should appreciate that _we are not
rational creatures_. You don't need to get disgusted. Just accept what we are,
and try to be rational and not emotional when it matters.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
yet we are capable of rationality. accepting irrationality to me is accepting
things like torture and all other needless suffering. it is not malice that
most often leads to evil, but simply ignorance.

~~~
scott_s
Somethings don't matter, and it's acceptable to be irrational about them.
Others do matter. Figuring out the difference is not trivial.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
a willingness to be irrational about a subject that "doesn't matter" will make
you more willing to be irrational about subjects that do matter. it's not that
easy to game the human brain and tell it to be rational about this but not
about that. much easier to be rational about everything. and it often turns
out that being rational about things that you didn't think mattered turn out
to matter.

~~~
sofal
_"Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to
any other office than to serve and obey them."_ \- David Hume

Be careful in your quest to be rational about all things. The term "rational"
has no solid foundation. Quite possibly believing yourself to be rational is
at best extremely irrational.

Also keep in mind that the assumption that other people expect and reward what
they consider to be rational behavior from you is not always true.

If you define "rational" to be cold logic that ignores human feelings and
passions, then it is weakly defined and it is not going to make you friends
(if you consider making friends to be a rational thing to do). Ultimately you
could postulate that human feelings eventually boil down to cold logic, but
unless you can calculate that in your head you're left with heuristics.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
taking into account emotions (which are an antiquated reaction system based on
choosing a course of action with incomplete information in a hunter-gatherer
tribe setting) is an important part of reason. And the term rational has an
extremely solid foundation: a set of self-consistent rules that allow you to
accurately predict reality. If it doesn't predict reality, throw it out and go
back to deductive experiments until you come up with something better.
Rationalism is inductive. that's the whole point.

~~~
sofal
How stupid our old hunter-gatherer ancestors must have been! They chose their
actions based on incomplete information! It's a good thing that kind of thing
has become antiquated among our intellectual upper class.

A question for you: what's the use of predicting reality if you have no
emotional investment in it? The mere act of trying to predict reality to
further some end means you have an emotional objective. The universe can get
along just fine without you, you know.

Also, how do you determine when your rules have accurately predicted reality?
Can you measure your own confirmation bias or congruence bias? Can you be sure
that you've rid yourself of your bias blind spot when you make the connection
between your mental model and what you perceive as reality?

There are not turtles all the way down. At some level you enter the exciting,
terrifying, wonderful, and dangerous world of raw human emotion. Emotions
aren't antiquated. They are the turbulent foundation upon which rationality
stands. I'm not saying that rationality is baseless or impossible. I'm just
saying that you cannot set it apart as a motivational engine that supersedes
human passion. I see it more as a system that helps you make effective use of
your emotional energy.

Additionally, you can't set up your definition of rationality (a set of self-
consistent rules that allow you to accurately predict reality) as a system
that encourages morality (rejecting things like torture or other needless
suffering, as you said above).

