Tag: Rationality

Doing Things Differently – Adventures Raising the Next Generation

Doing Things Differently – Adventures Raising the Next Generation

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Epistemic Status: 4/4 - Maximum Effort

It has been some time since I posted on this blog.  Writing posts that are good enough for me to consider posting takes a reasonable amount of effort, and since my last post I embarked upon a new project that significantly reduced my time available to work on such things.  Given the title of this post, it will come as no surprise that the new project in question is “everything associated with having and raising a child”.  This project is probably of limited interest to some, but there are aspects of the experience that I feel that I should share, in case it is of benefit to others.

By “doing things differently”, I refer to the process of questioning why an approach to something may be the norm, and choosing an alternative path that is more optimal (for me at least – other people’s predilections may differ).  This of course carries risks, and I try to think through as many reasons why the norm is indeed the norm, before I cavalierly leap over Chesterton’s fence.  However, if after this process, I still feel that I can make my life easier/better/more efficient with minimal risk, then I give the alternative approach a try…

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Legibility and Democracy

Legibility and Democracy

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Epistemic Status: 3/4 - Considered Opinion

I. The Importance of Legibility

Legibility in the context I am using it here refers fundamentally to the understandability of a system.

It might seem obvious that more understandability is better, but understandability also implies simplicity, and simplicity is not necessarily always good.  For example, with governmental policy, as addressed in James C. Scott’s book “Seeing Like a State” (Archive), a drive for legibility can result in adverse situations such as city planners neglecting important complexities that are necessary for a healthy society, or agricultural reforms that promote monocultures and deplete the soil.  This idea of legibility can be applied more widely, to cover any kind of system, process or theory – there is a balance between a theory being legible enough that it can be understood, and being nuanced enough that it gets the correct answers…

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Dedomic Utilitarianism

Dedomic Utilitarianism

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Epistemic Status: 2/4 - Speculative

This post loosely follows on from Resolving Moral Dilemmas using Uncertainty and Insanity.

Utilitarianism – A Brief Background

My aim here is not to provide yet another response to all of the common challenges to Utilitarianism.  A fairly good background of the challenges Utilitarianism has been faced with over the years can be found by reading through its Wikipedia article.  Alternatively for an even deeper dive, this article gives a very thorough summary of such things.  The issue is, that having fended off these initial criticisms, the philosophy of Utilitarianism has encountered a few problems which are not so easily dispatched.  Of the different types of Utilitarianism, some resolve certain problems, and others resolve other problems, but all reveal their own cracks in turn. It is on these deeper issues that I intend to focus…

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Bayesian Updating

Bayesian Updating

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Epistemic Status: 4/4 - Maximum Effort

Question

You have a randomly biased coin picked from the uniform distribution U(0,1).  It is flipped 3 times and comes up heads twice and tails once.  What is probability that 4th flip is a head?

This is a question that we can answer using Bayesian Updating, but unlike most simple examples of Bayes Theorem, we are not updating a single probability but an entire probability distribution.  There are many very good explanations of how to apply Bayes Theorem to update a single probability (video, article).  The principle is the same for updating a distribution, but it is a little more involved…

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Combining Rationality and Antifragility

Combining Rationality and Antifragility

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Epistemic Status: 2/4 - Speculative

Bridging the gap between Traditionalism and Modernism

Traditionalism is manifest in a confidence that the way we have always done things is the best.  Modernism by contrast is a term used to describe the almost monomaniacal application of “scientific principles” to optimise every aspect of life.  Whilst in many ways the opposite of traditionalism, this confidence in the correctness of the approach is something that both modernism and traditionalism very much have in common.  The planned, orderly approach to things that modernism advocated, resulted in both huge advances and huge catastrophes in the ‘50s and ‘60s – huge rockets that could reach the moon, monoculture farming turning large areas of the planet into arid dust bowls, glittering skyscrapers providing homes and office space for thousands of people, sterile grid-based cities devoid of culture or community.  Clearly modernism was not all bad, but the negative consequences were remarkably far-reaching – if we view traditionalism and modernism as opposite ends of a spectrum, can we find a middle, and will this middle allow us to reap the benefits given by both approaches, avoiding the drawbacks of either…

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Why We Should Vote

Why We Should Vote

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Epistemic Status: 3/4 - Considered Opinion

I have recently been rather vexed by intelligent people making arguments against participating in the democratic process. After having several conversations, and reading several articles espousing the benefits of voter apathy, I can contain myself no longer, and must write down my counter argument for the benefit of my own sanity. For those who already agree that voting is important, hopefully this serves as a useful range of perspectives, but for anyone that disagrees, I hope that my frustration with the arguments against voting does not seep through too much, and put people off…

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What is Rationality?

What is Rationality?

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Epistemic Status: 3/4 - Considered Opinion

The Rationalist Movement, embodied by communities such as LessWrong and SlateStarCodex uses the term Rationality in a very particular way. As such, it is useful to be able to express this meaning to people, when trying to describe what the movement is, and what it is trying to accomplish. On a personal level, I have struggled greatly to adequately explain to other people not already familiar with the community and its values, the core of what Rationality is, and why they should care. There are several places trying to explain this but all are quite long-winded…

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