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Comment by Chris3 on Hand vs. Fingers · 2008-03-30T17:12:31.000Z · LW · GW

"Recently, however, scientists have made a stunning discovery: It's not your hand that holds the cup, it's actually your fingers, thumb, and palm."

What, are we in third grade? Are you really dedicating a whole post to the semantics of composition? Is it really that hard to fathom that the hand is composed of the fingers, thumb, and palm?

This just in! Scientists recently discovered that it's not actually people that post pretentious blog articles, but instead a sophisticated arraignment of meat popsicles.

Comment by Chris3 on The Affect Heuristic · 2008-03-30T16:58:36.000Z · LW · GW

P.S. There's something screwy with the comments on this page. My first comment didn't show up at all after I posted, so I reposted, and now it's showing up as "Posted by: Barkley Rosser"...

Comment by Chris3 on The Affect Heuristic · 2008-03-30T16:56:08.000Z · LW · GW

"A 7% probability versus 10% probability may be bad news, but it's more than made up for by the increased number of red beans. It's a worse probability, yes, but you're still more likely to win, you see. You should meditate upon this thought until you attain enlightenment as to how the rest of the planet thinks about probability."

I think this says less about probability and more about people's need to keep an optimistic outlook on life. You emphasize the positive fact that there's an "increased number of red beans", while ignoring the equally true fact that there's also a far greater increase in the number of non-red beans. This tends to support the cliched wisdom that people tend to filter out bad news, and hear only what they want to hear. It's a pretty good reflection of human nature.

Comment by Chris3 on The Affect Heuristic · 2008-03-30T16:53:06.000Z · LW · GW

"A 7% probability versus 10% probability may be bad news, but it's more than made up for by the increased number of red beans. It's a worse probability, yes, but you're still more likely to win, you see. You should meditate upon this thought until you attain enlightenment as to how the rest of the planet thinks about probability."

I think this says less about probability and more about people's need to keep an optimistic outlook on life. You emphasize the positive fact that there's an "increased number of red beans", while ignoring the equally true fact that there's also a far greater increase in the number of non-red beans. This tends to support the cliched wisdom that people tend to filter out bad news, and hear only what they want to hear. It's a pretty good reflection of human nature.