Comment by Dio on The Affect Heuristic · 2019-07-30T16:28:51.039Z · LW · GW

I think on the disease example that the so-called heuristic interpretation is not necessarily irrational but depends on the ambiguous significance of each description of evidence. The statement that the disease kills 1,286 people out of every 10,000 can be interpreted as the report of a killing and is equivalent to "the disease is definitely fatal to at least some people". However the statement that the disease is 24.14% likely to be fatal can be interpreted as merely a speculation of the disease's potential fatality.