Comment by pinkocrat on A bit of word-dissolving in political discussion · 2015-01-29T22:29:06.080Z · LW · GW

Can you give me some examples of this type of bravery by politicians, Eli?

Politicians might address downsides to their policies by ignoring, hiding, or downplaying them ("There may have been some civilian casualties, but the important thing is..."), calling them a necessary evil ("We protect hate speech to protect all other speech"), or spinning them into a positive good ("My new law inconveniences criminals? Good, let's stick it to 'em!").

But I can't think of any time a politician engaged in the proud bullet-biting you see with philosophers.

Comment by pinkocrat on What are your contrarian views? · 2014-10-12T16:06:06.286Z · LW · GW

[Please read the OP before voting. Special voting rules apply.]

As long as you get the gist (think in probability instead of certainty, update incrementally when new evidence comes along), there's no additional benefit to learning Bayes' Theorem.

Comment by pinkocrat on What are your contrarian views? · 2014-10-12T15:52:40.645Z · LW · GW

I think the whole point is that there's no fact of the matter. "There are only maps" is a map, and on its own logic it's only as true as it is useful. I'm not sure how I would assign a probability to it.

Comment by pinkocrat on What resources have increasing marginal utility? · 2014-07-14T23:32:50.938Z · LW · GW

I don't understand your objection. What good would (written) contracts be if everyone always kept their word anyway?